Neighborhoods
Mount Washington was founded in the early 1700's and was named for George Washington, who stood near what is now the flag pole along Grandview Avenue and offered his survey of the land and rivers below.
In 1760, two years after the British wrested command of the Ohio River from the French, mining operations began beneath the mountain--known simply as "Coal Hill."
The English, Scotch-Irish and Welsh iron and glass makers were the first to reside atop Mt. Washington. Later, German immigrants came and built four inclined railway systems (from 1867-1877) that hauled people and supplies. Two of these railways, the Monongahela and the Duquesne Inclines, still operate today.
One of the early land-owning families of Mt. Washington--the Bighams--used their house as a station of the Underground Railroad, moving fugitive slaves north to freedom in Canada.
Mt. Washington street names--Kearsarge, Merrimac, Shiloh-- reflect the great influx of new residents and development following the Civil War (1865) and Spanish American War (1898).
Today, Mt. Washington embodies the great sweep of Pittsburgh history: finely restored homes from early 1900s to the red-bricks of the 1950s, to the newest single-family and multi-unit architecture.
