Category: History || By

"Left from Duquesne across the Monongahela River to McKEESPORT, 1.1 m. (750 alt., 54,632 pop.), at the junction of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers, a highly developed industrial city with a large foreign population. David McKee, a north country Irishman who settled here in 1755, acquired title to 844 acres and in 1775 obtained ferry privileges from Colonial authorities. McKeesport was a center of conflict during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

"A town was laid out in 1795, but it was not until 35 years later, with the opening of coal mines in the vicinity, that it began to grow. The plants of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company and the National Tube Company, among the largest of their kind in the world, are along the river, as is the Firth-Sterling mill, first fabricator of stainless steel in America. The city rises in curves and terraces from the river banks."

. . .

That's the description of Our Fair City compiled as part of the Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal program designed to put thousands of unemployed writers to work during the Great Depression.

Though criticized during the 1930s as a waste of taxpayers' money, the Writers' Project did compile some 300,000 documents, including oral histories from first- and second-generation immigrants, that offer an unprecedented look at life in the United States before and during the Depression.

Perhaps the best-known works of the Writers' Project were the 48 books of the "American Guide Series," which described the major cultural and industrial influences in all of the (then) United States, and provided capsule histories of the most significant communities.

The 1940 Pennsylvania guide includes a series of about two-dozen tours, including one through the Mon-Yough area along Route 837. Although many of the mills described on the tour are now gone, many of the sites remain historically significant.

For the first time on the Internet, and just in time for the summer travel season, Tube City Online is presenting the 1940 Mon Valley auto tour, along with some commentary on the present-day status of the landmarks described.

It's in our "Visitors" section.