Old industrial sites along Great Allegheny Passage Trail to get historical markers - TribLIVE

poloong.blogspot.com

The sites of former steel mills and other long gone vestiges of the region’s industrial might from Homestead to McKeesport will be emblazoned with historical markers along the Great Allegheny Passage Trail.

Rivers of Steel, a nonprofit focusing on region’s industrial history, awarded an almost $4,000 grant to the to the Regional Trail Corporation to install eight interpretative signs along the Great American Passage (GAP) in Whitaker, West Mifflin, Duquesne and McKeesport.

This section of the GAP trail, which lacks interpretative signage, traverses through a once highly concentrated industrial area of steel mills and related plants on one of the final sections of the trail before it opened in 2011. The GAP is a 150-mile long recreational trail between Cumberland, Md., and Pittsburgh.

“While riding with people on the Raptor Row Ride in Duquesne, one of the younger riders asked me what this used to be, referring to the former Duquesne Steel Mill property,” said Roy Bires, a board member of the Regional Trail Corp., which manages a number of trails in southwestern Pennsylvania.

“At first I was shocked that someone would ask that question,” he said. “Then I realized younger people would not have ever seen the Duquesne Steel Mill or the National Tube Works in action,” he said.

The GAP trail goes right through the former sites of these two steel mills and there is no information on the trail about the two former industrial sites.

The new signage will change that, Bires said.

Sites to be noted include: Duquesne Steel Mill, National Tube Works, Edgar Thomson Steel Works, Clairton Coke Works Gas Line, Riverton Bridge connecting Duquesne and McKeesport), Flyover trail bridges and more.

Bires highlighted the following sites:

• Edgar Thomson Steel Works: Visitors to the trail like to see an active steel mill in action, he said. This is the only steel mill that Andrew Carnegie built; he acquired all the others, Bires noted.

• Clairton Coke Works Gas Line: A section of the trail in West Mifflin and Whitaker features pairs of three-feet-high cement columns on the side of the trail. The columns were used to support a coke gas line which was a byproduct of the Clairton Coke Works, Bires said. “Rather than discharge this gas into the air or burn it on site Andrew Carnegie piped the gas to the Edgar Thomson Steel Works and the Homestead Steel Works and used the gas at those mills instead of natural gas,” he said. The gas line is still used to fuel the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, he added.

• A site from the General Braddock expedition with George Washington where they crossed the Monongahela River just behind what is now Kennywood Park on their way to Fort Duquesne.

• Thomson Run Waterfalls, a few hundred feet off the trail under Route 837 bridge in Duquesne. These falls one of the largest waterfalls on the GAP but are partially hidden in the summer by vegetation. They can best be seen in the winter.

Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary at 724-226-4691, mthomas@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Local | Pittsburgh