Discover how this park went from being a glass factory to a park.

#oldmaps #antiquemaps #pittsburghhistory #southsidehistory #McKee #historyuncovered #earlyamericanhistory #southsidepittsburgh #parks #armstrongpark #armstrongfield

‍

‍

Transcript

[Intro music] 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:35:00

Hi, I'm Melanie, and this is Artifact and Landmark. This episode is about the history of Armstrong Field, which is located on the old property of S McKee & Co, a glassworks that operated during the Victorian era from about 1837 to about 1908. The property was purchased in 1909 by Edward Hartje, who was a lawyer, and he also invested heavily in real estate along with his family.

00:00:35:02 - 00:01:08:14

So first, I'm going to show you a few maps of what the property looked like before. It was purchased in 1909, so we can actually go back to about 1852. And this map was created by the city engineer, McGowan. And we see a few buildings on the lot. Next we see, a map, a Hopkins map from 1872, and we see the works expanding to the other side of Sarah Street, 1872 is also the year that Birmingham gets annexed into Pittsburgh. In 1884,

00:01:08:14 - 00:01:32:13

we see the extent of the operations from this insurance map. It's a Sanborn map. We see the bottle works and the window glass areas in the works. Next we see in a Sanborn map from 1906, the Ffinal configuration of the works before it's sold off. We also see that the bottle works across Sarah Street are being operated by another company.

00:01:32:15 - 00:01:57:25

Now, how did this property go from being acquired by a real estate company to becoming Armstrong Field? So after it was purchased in 1909, nothing much happened with the property. So during a time we see a group kind of rise up and they call themselves the Armstrong Park Association, named after the current mayor of Pittsburgh, Joseph G.

00:01:57:26 - 00:02:23:21

Armstrong. In 1917, we see a parade to celebrate the opening of the park. The parade includes Daniel Winters Jr as a chief marshal and the reason he's important in this is because he's a son of Daniel Winter, Sr. He was the final foreman of the McKee glassworks and he worked there for about 35 years and is very closely associated with the leadership and specifically, Daniel McKee.

00:02:23:23 - 00:02:50:28

So in a 1918 article, we get some additional insight. And we know this is a bit premature because of the condition of the park. Only a very small amount of the park is open and there are still old buildings on the glassworks site. So, the Armstrong Park Association, at this time chaired by William McGarry, they've collected about $425, but most of that has gone to grading the property.

00:02:51:00 - 00:03:18:19

So they're kind of in a pickle. So in the same year, the city issued an ordinance which, which is ordinance number 196, which provides for a three year lease of the property with some requirements, including cleaning up and grading the property for use after those three years are up. We see the Hartje brothers offering their property to the city for about $165,000, which they are very disappointed about.

00:03:18:21 - 00:03:43:17

They feel it's a raw deal. They believe the property is actually only worth about $79,000. So a  few months later, they issue ordinance number 254, exercising the power of eminent domain to take over the property. I couldn't find the exact amount that the property was purchased for, but I imagine it would be around that $79,000. So here we see a final map that I'm sharing with you.

00:03:43:19 - 00:04:14:08

And after, the city takes charge of the property and it shows basically a blank map. So we also have pictures showing what it looks like today. If you want to learn more about this company, meaning this glass house, we have a few videos that cover S. McKee & Co. So I hope you enjoy this overview of the Armstrong Field and appreciate the effort that went into making this park a reality for Pittsburgh.

‍