July 29 - A First in "The West" - by which I mean Pittsburgh!!!

Posted on July 29, 2022

Key points

This is an update of my post published on July 29, 2011:

The first U.S. newspaper west of the Alleghenies was published on this date in 1786.

Back then, it was called the Pittsburgh Gazette – but now it’s called the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Nowadays Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, doesn’t seem very far west, but back then it marked the western edge of publishing in North America!

I just went to Pittsburgh for the first time. My favorite sight there was the 42-story Cathedral of Learning, which is a wonderful gothic building where Pitt students can study in cozy medieval-looking nooks or in grand halls with lofty arched ceilings. Two floors of classrooms have been decorated by people from particular countries—everything from Israel to Japan, from Wales to Italy, from Africa to Ukraine—to represent and teach about that country. I spent several happy hours exploring all the “nation” rooms open to the public.