Oakmont had a strong industrial heritage and throughout the 20th century combined residential and industrial uses. Industry developed along the river, where trucks, barges, and railroads delivered raw materials and shipped finished products. Edgewater Steel, founded in 1916, became the nationwide leader in manufacturing train wheels for the railroad, and its gun shop produced cannon barrels during World War I and rings for the aviation industry during World War II. The Wm. B Scaife Company, founded in the early 1800s and moved to Oakmont in 1891, manufactured metal tanks, compressors, bomb casings, and domestic products such as buckets, boilers, tanks, and fittings. Other successful companies in Oakmont included Woodings-Verona Tool Works, which made high quality railroad tools, Dexter Spring Company, which produced suspensions for carriages and buggies, Walters Manufacturing, which made metal cabinets, and the U.S. Gypsum Company on Allegheny Avenue, which was a world leader in building materials production at the time. While many rivertowns declined after heavy industry left Western Pennsylvania, Oakmont continued to flourish as residential interests took over land once used by industry. In 1944, Edgewater workers posed with the one-millionth wheel, and the company occupied nearly 35 acres between the Allegheny River and Allegheny Avenue from 1916 to 2001. Oakmont's one-mile arboretum trail through the center of town reflects the community's pride of place and was created by the Garden Club of Oakmont with local support.