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Are yinz from Pittsburg? How Pittsburgh lost its 'H' and got it back a century ago this week
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jul 18, 2011 04:43pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Patricia Lowry |
| Media | Newspaper - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
| News Date | Sunday, July 17, 2011 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "Richardson Clover had a problem, and a pretty good idea how to fix it.
As assistant hydrographer in the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Navigation in 1889, Lt. Clover was in charge of producing its maps. He'd noticed that many place names were spelled several different ways, especially in Alaska, where there were 20 indigenous languages.
He suggested to Thomas C. Mendenhall, superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, that the two offices work together on standardizing place names on government charts and other official publications.
Thus was born, in 1890, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. One of its first acts, on June 2, 1891, was to take away Pittsburgh's "H." On Dec. 23, President Benjamin Harrison made it official. Merry Christmas, Pittsburg!
Nothing personal, mind you. The board ruled that all cities and towns with name endings pronounced "berg" should be spelled "burg."
In the case of Pittsburgh, this was not as capricious as it seems. Numerous 19th-century local history books omitted the H. Not even the city's newspapers, including the Pittsburg Telegraph, the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette and the Pittsburg Press, could agree on the spelling.
And although Pittsburgh's original city charter of 1816 spelled it with an H, the printed act omitted it due to a printer's error. The board believed the U.S. Post Office arbitrarily added the H at a later date." |
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