Pittsburgh

Forks of the Ohio

Landmark · Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

The confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers where the Ohio River begins. This geographic feature is the reason Pittsburgh existed: whoever controlled the confluence controlled the practical gateway to the Ohio Valley and the interior of the continent. The French recognized this in 1754 by building Fort Duquesne here; the British confirmed it in 1758 by immediately replacing it with Fort Pitt. The Continental Army maintained a presence here throughout the Revolution as the anchor of western frontier defense.

Fort Pitt Museum

Landmark · 601 Commonwealth Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Museum built within Point State Park that reconstructs the Monongahela Bastion of Fort Pitt and interprets the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War history of the confluence. Exhibits cover the French Fort Duquesne, the British construction of Fort Pitt, Pontiac's War, and the fort's role as a Continental Army western base during the Revolution. The museum occupies the footprint of one of the original fort's bastions.

Fort Pitt Site (Point State Park)

Landmark · Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

The site of Fort Pitt, built by the British in 1758–1761 on the ground where Fort Duquesne had stood. At the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, it was the largest and most expensive fort the British built in North America. During the Revolution, it served as the Continental Army's western headquarters, supply depot, and the staging point for operations into the Ohio Valley. The fort's outline is preserved in Point State Park, and a reconstructed blockhouse — the only original structure remaining — still stands.

Grant Street Area (Historic Town Lots)

Landmark · Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

The area of present-day downtown Pittsburgh where the civilian settlement grew up alongside Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary period. The town laid out near the fort in the 1760s was small — a few dozen structures at most during the Revolution — but it served as a commercial and administrative hub for the western frontier. Taverns, traders, and a small number of permanent residents made it the westernmost recognizable town in Pennsylvania.

Logstown Site (Economy, PA)

Landmark · Economy, PA 15005 (approximate)

The site of Logstown, a multi-tribal Native American trading and diplomatic center on the Ohio River about eighteen miles below the Forks, used through the mid-eighteenth century as a meeting ground for British, French, and Native diplomacy. Although largely abandoned by the Revolutionary period, it represents the pre-war diplomatic landscape that shaped the alliances and conflicts of frontier warfare. Treaty negotiations at Logstown in 1752 foreshadowed the conflicts that drew Pittsburgh into the center of continental warfare.