During the nineteenth century, many notable people passed through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They experienced indelible sights, sounds, and smells. Some of them left contemporary accounts that have formed some of the most iconic historical quotations about the industrial city and its region.

“Smokey Riverside,” c. 1940. Smoke Control Lantern Slides, University of Pittsburgh Libraries.

Boston writer James Parton in 1868 left perhaps the most best known description of Pittsburgh, a city that by that time already had become infamous for its smoke-blackened skies:

There is one evening scene in Pittsburg which no visitor should miss. Owing to the abruptness of the hill behind the town, there is a street along the edge of a bluff, from which you can look directly down upon all that part of the city which lies low, near the level of the rivers. On the evening of this dark day, we were conducted to the edge of the abyss, and looked over the iron railing upon the most striking spectacle we ever beheld. The entire space lying between the hills was filled with blackest smoke, from out of which the hidden chimneys sent forth tongues of flame, while from the depths of the abyss came up the noise of hundreds of steam-hammers. There would be moments when no flames were visible; but soon the wind would force the smoky curtains aside, and the whole black expanse would be dimly lighted with dull wreaths of fire. It is an unprofitable business, view-hunting; but if any one would enjoy a spectacle as striking as Niagara, he may do so by simply walking up a long hill to Cliff Street in Pittsburg, and looking over into—hell with the lid taken off. James Parton, Atlantic Monthly, January 1868.

The author Charles Dickens passed through Pittsburgh on his way to Cincinnati a generation earlier, in 1842. Though Parton’s description of Pittsburgh as “hell with the lid taken off” is often misattributed to Dickens, the distinguished British author did have some choice words about the city:

Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. It certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is famous for its iron-works. Besides the prison to which I have already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other institutions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the neighbourhood, are pretty enough. We lodged at a most excellent hotel, and were admirably served. As usual it was full of boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story of the house. Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation, 1842.

The Dickens and Parton accounts have endured and they have become part of Pittsburgh’s folklore and history. They are among many other well-circulated narratives describing the “Smoky City” that appeared during the nineteenth century that have endured. Other accounts have received less attention because they remain buried in unpublished diaries and journals or correspondence. One such account comes from Philadelphia architect Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887).

Thomas U. Walter. Architect of the Capitol website.

Walter in 1856 passed through Pittsburgh on his way to West Virginia and Ohio. He stayed overnight in Pittsburgh and toured the city and its sister, Allegheny City, on the Allegheny River’s north side. By the time that he visited Pittsburgh, Walter had established himself as one of America’s leading architects. His portfolio in 1856 included Philadelphia’s Girard College and Moyamensing Prison. In 1851, Walter became the Architect of the Capitol and he designed the iconic dome that was completed in the 1860s. He was serving as the Architect of the Capitol when he traveled west in 1856.

Walter was a prolific writer during his domestic and European travels. His unpublished journals and correspondence include rich and direct observations about the places he visited as well as sketches of buildings he found interesting. Walter’s papers are archived in Philadelphia and the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has microfilm copies.

By 1856, Pittsburgh already was a thrumming hub in an emerging railroad and established riverboat network. Trains arrived in the city around the clock. Walter’s train pulled into the city after midnight, Thursday May 8, 1856:

Thursday. Arrived at Pittsburgh at 1 A.M. Took lodgings at the Monongahela House — Slept until 8 A.M.

Took a carriage and rode around the city—it has a Philadelphia look but excessively smokey and dirty—Some well built houses, but no appearance of comfort. Allegheny City on the other side of the river, looks somewhat cleaner, but the whole region is filled with smoke and dust from the freat number of furnaces always in blast, the factories and the steamboats, all of which use bituminous coal.

Walter returned to his hotel and wrote to his wife. After dining, at 3:00 p.m., Walter boarded another train for Columbus, Ohio, and departed Pittsburgh. He was there for 13 hours, a layaway to those of us accustomed to switching flights at airline hubs. Walter’s only reason for stopping in Pittsburgh was to switch rail lines: the Pennsylvania Railroad (reached Pittsburgh in 1848) terminated in the city and the the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad (later, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne Railroad) provided service into Ohio.

Walter spent a few days in Ohio before returning east. He penned another journal entry documenting his stay in Wheeling, West Virginia. Walter’s last visit to Wheeling was in the mid-1830s. He had designed the Merchants and Mechanics Bank building, which was completed in 1837 and razed in c. 1900. If Walter wasn’t impressed by Pittsburgh’s landscape and buildings, he was even less enamored with Wheeling:

Wednesday. Wheeling is the filthiest city I ever saw in America — All the smoke of Pittsburgh — streets apparently never cleaned, dust, shocking — it is built on the Ohio River, flanked by mountains which keep all the air off—people all look sick and dirty—even the signs are so covered with dust, and blackened by smoke, you can scarcely read them.

Saw the bank I planned for them some 20 years ago; it is well built but looks as though it was built in the time of Caesars — people here look very seedy —very.

After spending even less time in Wheeling than he did in Pittsburgh, Walter boarded a train for Cumberland, Maryland.

“Smokey Bridge,” c. 1940. Smoke Control Lantern Slides, University of Pittsburgh Libraries.

The lesson here? There isn’t one other than gems like Walter’s papers — which I first came across in 2006 while researching the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington — remind us that what ends up being published and incorporated into academic scholarship and popular culture is a shallow surface waiting to be pierced by words like Walter’s. Walter isn’t an insignificant figure in American history and as a gifted designer of landmark buildings, I think that his observations on places like Pittsburgh and Wheeling, collectively, the “Steel Valley” and both subjects of voluminous industrial history and pollution scholarship, deserve an equal footing with the words of his contemporaries: a biographer (Parton) and a novelist (Dickens).

© 2019 D.S. Rotenstein

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