Latest Fort Pitt Stories

Completion is expected by late spring 2013 PITTSBURGH, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Extensive renovations and improvements to the fountain at Point State Park in Pittsburgh are on track and even slightly ahead of schedule after mild winter weather, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Richard J. Allan said today. The $9.6 million project, the fountain's first major overhaul in almost 40 years, is supported by a combination of state investments and...

HARRISBURG, Pa., Aug. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources acting Secretary John Quigley said today that the wharf areas, water access, restrooms and fountain at Point State Park in Pittsburgh will be closed for the next phase of construction beginning this week. "We remain on schedule with our complete overhaul of Point State Park as we enter these final phases of improvements to the wharf and the fountain," Quigley said. "The...

By Richard Robbins, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Jul. 27--On a recent guided tour of the battlefield, David Miller, chief of education at Bushy Run, pointed out Edge Hill, where Bouquet's command spent the night of Aug. 5, and where, the morning of Aug. 6, they heard the battle cry of the enemy. This open, grassy field no longer resembles the colonial forest of 1763, but the topography is the same. Miller took note of the embankment that hid the retreating Redcoats from the warriors just...

By Carl Prine, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Jul. 13--During the Civil War, the Fort Pitt Foundry and Artillery Proving Grounds, located near today's Heinz History Center in the Strip District, cast what officers termed a "monster cannon." Twenty inches at the mouth, 20 feet in length, weighing nearly 117,000 pounds and able to hurl a half-ton projectile 5 miles, the U.S. Army piece was turned out in 1864. It remains one of the largest cannons ever forged in the United States and required 24...

PITTSBURGH - About two weeks ago, archaeologist Tom Kutys thought he'd found a stone wall when he came across mortared capstones in a trench at the state park that once was the site of French and British forts. Instead, archaeologists at Point State Park believe they very well might have uncovered long-buried remnants of Fort Duquesne, Pittsburgh's original fort."If we are correct about this, we are looking at the earliest example of European masonry in Pittsburgh," said Brooke...