Brownsville

History

In pre-Columbian times, the right bank of the Monongahela River held several mounds where iron-rich red stone predominated, now believed to have been constructed by a branch of the Mound Builders cultures, but believed by colonials to have been forts. This led to the area near the river crossing being called Redstone Old Fort in various colonial government records and later Fort Burd when an arms cache was built there. By the time the region first became known to Dutch colonists and traders and the French in the 1640s, the lands were largely unoccupied, but under the management of one tribe or shared by several groups of Iroquoian peoples, likely the Erie people or Wenro people and possibly shared with the Seneca, the Shawnee people and the Susquehannocks. With all the rivers and streams tributary to the Monongahela, Youghiogheny, and Allegheny Rivers, there is little known about the region's precise role in the Beaver Wars of the 17th century, but when French, Dutch and Swedish fur traders penetrated to the Greater Ohio Basin in the 1640s and 1650s, the one thing that seemed clear to those observers was that the lands later termed the Ohio Country seemed empty and unpopulated.

In the 17th century, several provincial Virginians and Marylanders confirmed the emptiness of the region. Before the 1750s, the area was "colonized" by weakened remnant tribes such as the Delaware and the few Erie and the Susquehannock survivors that the Iroquois allowed to move there as tributary peoples (climbing the gaps of the Allegheny). These migrations occurred over the 70 to 80 years before the French and Indian War in the 1750s, where today's historians usually report the lands were long held as "hunting territories" of the powerful Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. During the Revolution, the Iroquois were divided whether to back the colonies or the mother country, and mostly did neither, attempting to stay neutral. Nonetheless, in 1778, agitated by British officers lobbying for frontier attacks, mixed parties of Tories (Loyalists) and Iroquois committed atrocities in 1778, so Washington sent the Sullivan Expedition in 1779, which broke the power of the Iroquois and reopened the Ohio Country to homesteader settlement. As a river crossing, the closest to the pass that reached the Monongahela, the town saw many settlers passing by.

Because colonial settlers believed that the earthwork mounds were a prehistoric fortification, they called the settlement Redstone Old Fort; later in the 1760s and 1770s, it became known as "Redstone Fort" or "Fort Burd", named after the officer who commanded the British fort constructed in 1759. The fort was constructed during the French and Indian War on the bluff above the river near a prehistoric earthwork mound that was also the site of historic Native American burial grounds.

Culture

In 2019, Brownsville served as the primary filming location for the coming-of-age comedy-drama web television series I Am Not Okay with This, which became available on Netflix in 2020.

Geography

Brownsville is located at 40°1′12″N 79°53′22″W (40.020026, −79.889536), situated on the east (convex) side of a broad sweeping westward bend in the northerly flowing Monongahela River on the northwestern edge of Fayette County. The river's action eroded the steep-sided sandstone hills, creating shelf-like benches and connecting sloped terrain that gave the borough lowland areas adjacent to or otherwise accessible to the river shores. Much of the borough's residential buildings are built above the elevation of the business district.

The opposite river shore of Washington County is, uncharacteristically for the region, shaped even lower to the water surface and is generally flatter. A small hamlet called West Brownsville developed on the western shore, with a current population of 992. Historically the area was a natural river crossing, and it was the site of development of a ferry, boat building and a bridge to carry roads. When the nascent United States government appropriated funds for its first road building project, in 1811 Brownsville was chosen as an early intermediate target destination along the new National Road. Until a bridge was built across the river, Brownsville was the western terminus.

Redstone Creek is a local tributary stream of the Monongahela River, entering just north of Brownsville. Its color came from the ferrous sandstone that lined its bed, as well as the sandstone heights near the Old Forts. The creek was wide enough for settlers to build, dock and outfit numerous flatboats, keelboats, and other river craft. Its builders made thousands of pole boats that moved the emigrants who settled the vast Northwest Territory. Later Brownsville industry built the first steamboats on the inland rivers, and many hundreds afterwards.

Colonists used the term "Old Forts" for the mounds and earthworks created by the prehistoric Mound Builders cultures. Archeologists and anthropologists have since determined that many prehistoric Native American cultures in North America along the Mississippi River and its tributaries built massive earthworks for ceremonial, burial and religious purposes over a period of thousands of years prior to European encounter. For instance, the Mississippian culture, reaching a peak about 1150 CE at Cahokia in present-day Illinois, had sites throughout the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, and into the Southeast. Archaeological research is ongoing working to tie the local mounds and others regionally close to a particular era and culture.

Demographics

As of the 2000 census, there were 2,804 people, 1,238 households, and 716 families residing in the borough. The population density was 2,796.6 inhabitants per square mile (1,079.8/km2). There were 1,550 housing units at an average density of 1,545.9 per square mile (596.9/km2). The racial makeup of the borough was 85.95% White, 11.41% African American, 0.11% Native American, 0.07% Asian, 0.21% from other races, and 2.25% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.82% of the population.

There were 1,238 households, out of which 24.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.2% were married couples living together, 17.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.1% were non-families. 38.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.24 and the average family size was 2.97.

In the borough the population was spread out, with 23.2% under the age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 25.6% from 25 to 44, 21.1% from 45 to 64, and 21.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.7 males.

The median income for a household in the borough was $18,559, and the median income for a family was $32,662. Males had a median income of $31,591 versus $21,830 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $13,404. About 28.8% of families and 34.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 51.2% of those under age 18 and 17.9% of those age 65 or over.

Features

Dunlap's Creek Bridge (1839) under part of the level stretch of Market Street, carrying old U.S. Route 40 over Dunlap's Creek in Brownsville, is the nation's oldest cast iron bridge in existence. (Capt. Richard Delafield, engineer; John Snowdon and John Herbertson, foundrymen)

The Flatiron Building (c. 1830), constructed as a business building in thriving 19th-century Brownsville, is one of the oldest, most intact iron commercial structures west of the Allegheny Mountains. Over its history, it has housed private commercial entities as well as public, such as a post office. It is the unofficial "prototype" for the flatiron buildings seen across the United States. The most notable is the Flatiron Building in Market Square in New York City.

After nearly being demolished, the building was saved by the Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation (BARC). Throughout two decades, via private and public grants, BARC has restored the Flatiron Building as an historic asset to Brownsville. The Flatiron Building Heritage Center, located within the building at 69 Market Street, holds artifacts from Brownsville's heyday, as well as displays about the community's important coal and coke heritage. The Frank L. Melega Art Museum, located with the Heritage Center, displays many examples of this local southwestern Pennsylvanian's famous artwork, depicting the coal and coke era in the surrounding tri-state region.

In addition to the Dunlap's Creek Bridge, Brownsville is the location of other properties on the National Register of Historic Places. They are Bowman's Castle (Nemacolin Castle), Brownsville Bridge, St. Peter's Church, and Thomas H. Thompson House. There are two national historic districts: the Brownsville Commercial Historic District and Brownsville Northside Historic District.

Education

The Brownsville Area School District serves Brownsville as well as several nearby communities. Schools within the district are:

Brownsville Area High School (9–12)

Brownsville Area Middle School (6–8)

Brownsville Area Elementary School (K–5)

Infrastructure

Transportation

Brownsville is located on the banks of the Monongahela River, a major tributary of the Ohio River, one of North America's most important waterways. The Monongahela is fully navigable at Brownsville, and offers inexpensive barge transportation to Chicago, New Orleans, St. Marks in Florida, Minneapolis, Tulsa, Kansas City, Houston, and Brownsville, Texas, on the border with Mexico. The shipyards of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, provided Captain Richard King of Brownsville, Texas (founder of the King Ranch), with powerful new-built riverboats to navigate the fast currents of the Rio Grande in 1849.

Brownsville is connected to the satellite community of West Brownsville (in Washington County) by the Brownsville Bridge completed in 1914, which spans the Monongahela River. In 1960, the Lane Bane Bridge was constructed just downstream, and path of U.S. Route 40 was moved to the new high-level structure and new four lane highway by-passing old Route 40 until the two merged in the small bedroom neighborhood known locally as Malden. In the heyday of Conestoga wagon migration travels and with the congestion of Brownsville's hilly terrain, the flat lands about Malden just two-to-three further on offered rare open spaces for west-bound travelers to camp and recuperate from the rigorous mountain descent.

Before the highway construction of the late 1950s was completed in the early 60s, two additional branchlike housing concentrations existed, the lined either side of "California Road" which intersected Old U.S. 40 in the heart of the small business district at landmarks, Paci's Restaurant and Cuppies Drive-In Theatre; the former set in a 17th-century stone Inn. The fourth concentration of housing extended from beside and beyond Cuppies Drive-In for over a mile either side of U.S. 40, now once again, single lane secondary highway. The community has few stores and several housing developments sited along a hilly plateau above the river valleys. The California Area High School is in part sited within parts of Malden.

Notable people

Benjamin W. Arnett (1838–1906), Bishop of A.M.E. Church, civil rights activist, Bishop at Wilberforce University in Ohio

John Brashear (1840–1920), astronomer and builder of scientific instruments

Thomas Brown (1738–1797), founder and entrepreneur

Vinnie Colaiuta (born 1956 in Brownsville, but lived in Republic), renowned jazz-rock-pop drummer

Richard G. Colbert (February 12, 1915 – December 2, 1973), four-star admiral in the United States Navy and former President of the Naval War College

Doug Dascenzo (born 1964), former MLB outfielder with the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres

Bill Eadie (born 1947), three-time WWF tag team champion Ax of Demolition

Daniel French (1770–1853), pioneering designer and builder of steam engines

Israel Gregg (1775–1847), first captain of the steamboat Enterprise

Andy Gresh (born 1974) talk show host, television host, color commentator

Alfred Hunt (1817–1888), first president of Bethlehem Iron Company, precursor of Bethlehem Steel Corporation

Esther Hunt (1751–1820), a pioneer who lived on America's frontier as a wife, a mother and a leader in her Quaker faith

Lisa Kirk (1925–1990), singer and actress