Pittsburgh’s Underground Railroad was built by its Black community. Here are the 1850 exodus, three fugitive slave trials, the confirmed sites, and why the tunnel stories remain unproven.
The Horne’s Christmas tree began in 1953 as a string of lights for sick children. Here is how it survived energy crises, a store sale and a fireproof building that burned.
Allegheny County jail hangings ended in 1911. Here are the documented cases, how the gallows worked, why Pennsylvania chose the electric chair in 1913, and which ghost stories have sources.
Before Pittsburgh smoke control, soot blackened curtains and midday skies. How the 1941 ordinance, Mayor David Lawrence and Richard King Mellon finally cleared the air, and what residents remembered.
On September 17, 1862, the same day as Antietam, an explosion at Lawrenceville’s Allegheny Arsenal killed 78 workers, mostly young women and girls. Here is what the records show, what is disputed, and what remains.
At its peak Pittsburgh ran streetcars on 606 miles of track and 99 routes. Here is how it fell to 58 miles by 1967, the 1917 tunnel disaster that scarred it, and why the South Hills lines survived.
In 1857 a boy found a skinned body in a Brookville icehouse. A doctor who helped dig it up later told the full story, and went on to help write the 1883 law that sent bodies to Pittsburgh’s medical schools.
The Liberty Tunnel was built between 1919 and 1922 and opened to traffic on January 30, 1924, before its ventilation was ready. Here is the timeline, the 1924 scare, and the city’s other road tunnels.
Gimbels Pittsburgh shut its doors on September 13, 1986. The reasons were a parent company that wanted out, steep losses, a labor fight, and the shift to the suburbs.
A fireball crossed six states on December 9, 1965, and a search party combed the Westmoreland County woods. Here is what the record shows, what grew up later, and what is still disputed.