Learn the history of this street in Oakland (Pittsburgh), PA. From its ownership by B.A. Fahnestock to Samuel McKee (glass manufacturer) to the subdivision by his heirs.
#oldmaps #antiquemaps #pittsburghhistory #oaklandhistory #McKee #Fahnestock #historyuncovered #earlyamericanhistory #1850s
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Melanie, and this is Artifact and Landmark. So this episode is about the history of McKee Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the former residence of Samuel McKee, a glassworks founder, and previous to him was the residence of B.A. Fahnestock, which, if you collect glass, you may have heard of. So we believe that Samuel would have purchased this estate after the death of Benjamin Fahnestock
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in about 1862.
When Samuel McKee died in 1876, the family inherited the estate. Many of the children ran into financial issues, and either through simply wanting to split the estate or due to their financial needs the McKee Place plan was approved by Pittsburgh on June 25th, 1892, and you can see the plan here. So I'm going to run through a few maps so you can see the progression of the subdivision and the ownership of this property over the years.
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We're extremely lucky to have this first map from 1852 by the city's civil engineer and surveyor, McGowan. We can see here off of Forbes B.A. Fahnestock’s residence by Ward Street. And then you can see his neighbors, next to him, which many will actually be the neighbors of Samuel McKee as well. So in 1872, which would be about four years before Samuel passes, we can see the same property here by Ward, and we've seen some improvements, but not that much.
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A few additional buildings here and there. And again, we do see some of the same neighbors. If we jump to 1889, all the children now own the property. And you can see they've started to develop. We see, Daniel and Mary, as well as Christian and Phoebe all owning this property. We see also upper in the right hand corner
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an additional structure for A.C. Dravo. And on the next page, we'll see William Van Kirk's house on the property as well. And again in 1892, we'll see this subdivision
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approved by the city in June of that year. By 1914, we see and the next, G.M. Hopkins’ map that most of the property has been sold. And we see sisters Mary S McKee and Phoebe McKee living next door to each other. So I hope you enjoyed this very quick video about the history of McKee place.
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If you're interested in Pittsburgh or glass history, you may want to check out some of our other videos.
