Ruins of the Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station

1877

View this item

Ruins of the Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station
  • Title
  • Ruins of the Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station
  • Identifier
  • MSP33.B013.F08.I02
  • Source Identifier
  • MSP33.B013.F08.I02
  • Description
  • The Pennsylvania Railroad Union Depot Building, built in 1857, after the Railroad Riots of 1877. The Pennsylvania Railroad in June of 1877 reduced all wages for its employees by 10 percent and beginning on July 19 of that same year, it declared that all freight trains between Pittsburgh and Derry were to be run as “double-headers,” or two trains, with two engines operated by only one crew. This action resulted in the workers going on strike. In late July 1877 while militia tried to disperse a large mob of strikers at the Twenty-eighth Street crossing in the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, shots were fired and about twenty people, mostly innocent bystanders were killed and a number of others wounded. The mob began breaking into shops and started to seize guns and ammunition, which it used to fire on the militiamen. After the troops began a hasty retreat, looting and burning broke out throughout the City of Pittsburgh. All in all, the mob had destroyed 1600 railroad cars, 126 locomotives, and burned sixteen buildings, a grain elevator, several machine shops, roundhouses, and the Union Depot (pictured). In the background is Central High School, built in 1872 and located at Bedford Avenue and Crawford Street.
  • Genre
  • photographs
  • Subject
  • Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
    Railroad terminals--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.
    Downtown (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
    Central High School (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
  • Source
  • Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation Collection Photographs, 1864-1953, MSP 33, Library and Archives Division, Senator John Heinz History Center
  • Contributor
  • Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
  • Collection
  • Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation Photographs
  • Rights Information
  • No Copyright - United States. The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
    http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/