Fort Pitt Museum

At the forks of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers in downtown Pittsburgh, Fort Pitt occupies a site that shaped early western Pennsylvania through war, empire, and settlement. The British built the fort in 1758 after the French abandoned and destroyed Fort Duquesne as General John Forbes's expedition approached, securing a strategic point contested in the French and Indian War. In 1763, during Pontiac's Rebellion, Delaware and Shawnee forces besieged Fort Pitt, where the commander gave smallpox-exposed blankets to Delaware emissaries before Colonel Henry Bouquet relieved the fort. Later a Revolutionary War headquarters, the site preserves the 1764 Blockhouse, Pittsburgh's oldest surviving building.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania · United States