McKeesport - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

MCKEESPORT, a city of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers (both of which are navigable), 14 m. S.E. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890), 20,741; (1900), 34,227, of whom 9349 were foreignborn and 748 were negroes; (1910 census) 42,694. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pittsburg & Lake Erie and the Pennsylvania railways. The city has a Carnegie library, a general hospital, and two business schools. Bituminous coal and natural gas abound in the vicinity, and iron, steel, and tin and terne plate are extensively manufactured in the city, the tin-plate plant being one of the most important in the United States. The total value of 4 the city's factory products was $3 6, 0 5 8 ,447 in 1900 and $23,0J4,412 in 1905. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. The first white settler was David McKee, who established a ferry here in 1769. In 1795 his son John laid out the town, which was named in his honour, but its growth was very slow until after the discovery of coal in 1830. McKeesport was incorporated as a borough in 1842 and chartered as a city in 1890.