Historic and Cultural Resource Plan
CHAPTER 4 HISTORIC AND CULTURAL RESOURCE PLAN I HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT The region was inhabited by the Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee and Mingo peoples when European traders and trappers As discussed earlier in Chapter Three, the growth of arrived to work along the County’s rivers. Native Americans Allegheny County and its communities has been strongly were largely nomadic, hunting and gathering food for influenced by the Three Rivers, abundant natural resources – survival. However, a few permanent settlements were especially high quality bituminous coal deposits – and established along the rivers, notably Shannopin’s Town proximity to major transportation routes. (a Delaware village near present-day Lawrenceville), Logstown (present-day Ambridge), and Chartier’s Old Town Hundreds of millions of years ago, the land that would (a Shawnee village in present-day Tarentum). Their homes become Allegheny County was covered by a shallow were built of log huts and bark. The Native Americans ocean. The flat sea floor was uplifted and altered by bartered with fur traders from England and France, trading erosion, resulting in a landscape characterized by steep beaver pelts for goods such as salt, blankets, guns and hills with relatively narrow ridge tops and steep-sided valleys. gunpowder. The French took care to befriend the Indians, The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converged to form a friendship that would become very important. the Ohio River. Through geologic time these rivers carved the Allegheny Plateau into the rugged terrain of today. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR The land is underlain by limestone, sandstone, shale and coal, which helped to fuel the emergence of our County’s “As I got down before the Canoe, I spent some Time in industry in the late 19th century.
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