Allegheny Arsenal, Part I

History has always interested me and the Pittsburgh area has plenty. I stumbled upon today's subject by chance.

On a “Roadtrips in Pennsylvania” website I noted a short paragraph on Allegheny Arsenal Park and realized that I know exactly where it is. Like a lot of people I’m sure, I’ve passed it and never thought twice about its name, the location, or its historical significance. I decided to check it out with Sarah and Emily in tow.

Located in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, home of Sarah and Emily’s paternal great-grandparents incidentally, the Allegheny Arsenal was established in 1814. It was an important supply and manufacturing center for the Union Army during the American Civil War. It is also the site of the single largest civilian disaster during the war.

On September 17, 1862, around 2 pm, the arsenal exploded. The explosion shattered windows in the surrounding community and was heard in Pittsburgh, two miles away. Other explosions followed.

No one knows for sure what happened that day, but the most accepted theory, or at least the most publicly accepted theory at the time, was that a metal horseshoe struck a spark that ignited loose powder.

Seventy-eight (78!) workers, mostly young women (teenagers), were killed. Many bodies were unidentified, and were buried in a mass grave in the nearby Allegheny Cemetery.

The explosion at the arsenal is overshadowed in history by the Battle of Antietam which was fought on the same day.

The girls are standing in what was the arsenal's pool.

After the war, the Allegheny Arsenal served primarily as a storage facility for the Ordnance Department and Quartermaster Corps. In the 1900s most of the land was sold. Today the site of the explosion is in a ball field in Arsenal Park.  In a bit of irony, the powder magazine (the oldest existing structure at the arsenal) was turned into a different kind of powder room. It now is the restroom in Arsenal Park.

read Allegheny Arsenal, Part II here