Minerd.com Feature: Pittsburgh 150 - Marking the Steel City's Sesqui-Centennial Birthday in 1908

This page contains rare images of Pittsburgh's "Sesqui-centennial" -- its 150th birthday -- in the year 1908. Cousin Corwin D. Tilbury is known to have sat on Pittsburgh City Council that year, making a very personal link between our family and this historic event.

Looking toward Pittsburgh's famed "Point" -- the confluence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers -- 1908

Downtown Pittsburgh as seen from the Duquesne Incline, published by Max Oppenheimer, Pittsburgh, and printed in Germany

Pittsburgh's Mt. Washington, high above the Smithfield Street Bridge (far left), Monongahela River, Monongahela Incline and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad station seen here. Photo copyright 1908 Detroit Publishing Company.

Holiday greetings sent by the Pittsburgh Coal Company dated Christmas 1908

Postcard caption: "Flag boats leading sesqui-centennial marine parade, Pittsburgh, 1908"

Postcard caption: "This is the crowd that greeted me at Pittsburgh Centennial" -- note the city's official sesqui-centennial seal

The official program book -- with cousin Corwin D. Tilbury named inside as one of Pittsburgh's Select Council -- forerunner to today's City Council

Popular postcard widely sold and circulated during the city's anniversary

West View Park in the city's North Hills suburb -- long ago demolished

The city's north side -- then known as "Allegheny" -- with the Pirates' old baseball park in the lower right corner, Exposition Park, last used in 1909

The Pittsburgh Pirates' new Forbes Field, which was under construction in 1908 but opened in 1909 -- the first concrete and steel ballpark in the Major Leagues

Pittsburgh's old city hall -- no doubt where City Select Council member Corwin D. Tilbury would have attended important meetings where he advocated for an unpopular pollution ordinance to reduce smoke emissions in the city

Carnegie Steel mills at 33rd Street -- part of the newly created empire of United States Steel -- the world's first billion-dollar company

Pedestrians dodge streetcars at the bustling intersection of Fifth Avenue and Wood Streets in the core of the city's shopping district

The old military block house located within the remains of historic Fort Pitt. Photograph by Chautauqua Photographic.

Busy Sixth Street. Photography by Detroit Publishing Co., 1908.

Liberty Avenue, looking east from the Wabash Railroad station

Downtown Pittsburgh, 1908, as seen from Duquesne Heights

Looking east on Liberty Avenue from Sixth Street

Intersection of Liberty (left) and Oliver Avenues

Fifth Avenue (left) and Liberty Avenue

"The Coal Industry - Pittsburg, PA." postcard printed by the Publishers Circulation Promotion Association in Pittsburgh circa 1908-1909

Leslie's Weekly, a special issue devoted to Pittsburgh, dated March 19, 1903, five years before the sesqui-centennial

McClure's Magazine of May 1903 -- published five years before the sesqui- centennial -- containing Lincoln Steffens' harsh expose of Pittsburgh's political corruption -- later republished in Steffens' bestseller, Shame of the Cities.

~ Earlier Views of Pittsburgh ~

Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion showing steamboats on the Ohio River near the Point in 1853.