Father Pitt

Tag: Antebellum Remains

  • The Largest Antebellum Building Downtown (Probably)

    2 Market Square

    This building was probably put up shortly after the Great Fire of 1845, to judge from the fact that it appears in an engraving of the Diamond as it was before 1852. Few buildings from before the Civil War are left downtown, and this is almost certainly the largest.

    View of the Diamond before 1852
    “Old Pittsburgh Court House and Market. Taken down 1852.” Source: Allegheny County: Its Early History and Subsequent Development. By Rev. A. A. Lambing, LL. D., and Hon. J. W. F. White. Pittsburgh: Snowden & Peterson, 1888.

    The building in the engraving is not quite the right dimensions, but the engraver (at the firm of John C. Bragdon, Pittsburgh’s busiest engravers) was probably working from hasty sketches.

    Note the volutes and incised decorations in the lintels over the windows, bringing the building up to date with the latest trends in Greek Revival style.

    Window
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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