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Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio. The
names sing of the nation's pioneer past
and the great westward thrust. Carnegie,
Frick, Heinz, Westinghouse and Mellon.
The names speak of financial empires, of
the industrialization that built this country
into a manufacturing complex whose
products find their way into every corner
of the globe. Steel City, Smoky City and
Renaissance City. The names reflect not
only the past of Pittsburgh but its pride
in the present and its faith in the future.
Pittsburgh, whose mills produced more
steel during the Second World War than
Germany and Japan combined, has
found it hard to shrug off the Smoky
City stereotype in the minds of many.
Today, a modern office-building complex,
Gateway Center, built, owned and
managed by H&S client The Equitable
Life Assurance Society of the United
States, is located at the apex of the Golden
Triangle downtown business area focused
on the point of land where the Monongahela
and Allegheny rivers meet to form the
Ohio. And, thanks to a cleanup program
begun in the late forties, the air is almost
as clear today as it was when, in 1753,
Virginia Governor Dinwiddie dispatched
Major George Washington to the area to
determine the intentions of the French
and the extent of their penetration of the
region. By the following year the present
site of Pittsburgh, with its commanding
view of the rivers, had become a battleground
between the French and English.
Washington himself had reported on the
military advantages of locating a fort at
the point.
A small party of English began erecting
a stockade on the site chosen by Washington
in the spring of 1754, only to be
driven out by a superior force of French
and Indians before construction was
completed. The French then occupied
the area and built Fort Duquesne. Several
months later the first blood of the French
and Indian War was shed in a battle between
the French and Indian forces and
troops of the Virginia militia led by
Washington.
For the next four years possession of
the area was hotly contested by the opposing
sides. In November of 1758 an
Enjoying view of Pittsburgh from the
Mt. Washington Overlook are (1. to r.)
Frances Laybourn, staff accountant
Barb Stahl, senior David Laybourn, and
staff accountant Lee Shull. David came to
Pittsburgh from the DH&S office in Bristol,
England, under the exchange visitor
program. Because of its extensive international
practice, the Pittsburgh office is one
10 of the more popular for exchange visitors.
