My spouse and I visited Fort Pitt on a Saturday afternoon in
late September 2017. Fort Pitt is open daily from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. Adult
admission to the museum costs $8, with discounts for seniors, students, and
children. The museum is located in downtown Pittsburgh’s Point State Park, near
the confluence of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny Rivers. Opened in 1969,
the museum occupies a two-story reconstructed bastion. Both an elevator and
stairs are available to travel between the floors. The museum offers restrooms
and a small gift shop with quality souvenirs. The Senator John Heinz History
Center (an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution that we visited in October
2012) operates the Fort Pitt Museum. The museum uses multimedia displays, life-size
dioramas, life-like figures, video, art, and artifacts) to explain the role of
Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania in the French and Indian War, the American
Revolution, and the Whiskey Rebellion. It also offers special exhibits; during
our visit, we observed artwork by a 20th century Pittsburgh artist,
and an extensive display of carved powder horns used by settlers, soldiers, and
Indians to store gunpowder.
British colonists built Fort Pitt (named after British statesman
William Pitt the Elder) in 1758 during the Seven Years War as a replacement of
the French colonial Fort Duquesne (which in turn, replaced the earlier British
Fort Prince George; it was also called Fort Dunmore at one time). During the
war, American Indian chiefs from the Shawnee, Iroquois, and Delaware (Lenape)
tribes negotiated peace with the governments of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and
allowed construction of Fort Pitt. However, after broken treaties regarding
hunting and settlement rights, the Indians attempted an unsuccessful siege of
the fort five years later. The US army used the fort during the American
Revolution because of its strategic river position as a gateway to the west.
The adjacent brick Blockhouse (or redoubt) is the only true remnant of the
original fort, and can be visited separately for free.
We only had an hour to spend at Fort Pitt, which was not enough
time to enjoy all its features and displays. (We visited after attending a
nearby college football game at Heinz Field.) Next visit, we’ll plan to spend a
few hours there.
No comments:
Post a Comment