Vandergrift

In the early 1890s, George McMurtry, president of the Apollo Iron & Steel Company, sought to expand galvanized steel operations and, facing labor problems and unable to acquire more land, chose a 650-acre farm site a few miles downstream on the Kiskiminetas River. He enlisted Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and New York City's Central Park, to create a town that would be "something better than the best," resulting in Vandergrift, with gently curving streets following the natural slope of the hills. The town was prepared in advance with the mill built, streets and sidewalks graded and paved, utilities installed, trees planted, and street lights erected; churches were offered free lots and half the cost of construction, and workers were offered building lots so they could build their own homes. In 1895, this was a unique idea in America: a company built a town entirely in advance and then turned opportunity for development over to workers. The Casino Theatre, built in 1900 in the Greek Revival Style, hosted live entertainment until 1927 and was a popular stop on the vaudeville circuit, welcoming visitors including President William H. Taft, Bob Fitzsimmons, Hoagy Carmichael, Tex Ritter, and the Three Stooges. In the 1950s it was converted to show wide-screen movies, but in 1981 it closed after multi-screen movie theaters throughout the valley drew away audiences; threatened with demolition in the late 1980s, it was restored by a community group and gained a place on the National Register of Historic Buildings, and today it again enjoys the reputation and popularity of its heyday. The Kiskiminetas River, once one of the most polluted rivers in the Commonwealth, has undergone a remarkable recovery through the efforts of environmental stewards, and the Kiski-Conemaugh Water Trail is now a key feature in the Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Main Line Canal Greenway and a popular destination for canoeists and kayakers.

Vandergrift, Pennsylvania · United States