Discover McKees Rocks

A History Worth Building On

McKees Rocks is one of the oldest places of continuous human habitation in eastern North America. By the chances of history, it might easily have become the site of Pittsburgh itself. Understanding where we’ve been is part of understanding why this place is worth investing in now.

Part I

The First 5,000 Years

As the last Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago, the Ohio River Valley emerged teeming with wildlife and clean streams. Early Native American peoples found it an ideal place to live, farm, fish, and hunt.

Settlement at this spot dates back some 5,000 years — to a time when Greece and Rome did not yet exist. Around 3,000 B.C., according to Carnegie Museum archaeologists, this was already a sizeable town. Its people grew corn and beans on the rich river bottomland still known as “The Bottoms,” and hunted with an ingenious spear-throwing device called an atlatl.

Shortly after 1,000 B.C., the Adena (Mound-Builder) culture lived here and began building the famous Indian Mound, part of which still remains today.

Part II

A colonial crossroads

The first Europeans to reach the area were of French and French-Indian descent, more interested in trapping and trading than conquest. In 1748, Peter Chartiers — of French and Shawnee lineage — led several hundred Shawnee into the area and operated a successful trading post at the mouth of the creek that still bears his
name.

The mid-1700s brought a colorful cast of characters: the Delaware King Shingas, Queen Aliquippa of the Seneca, and the guide Andrew Montour. In 1753, a young George Washington visited, met King Shingas, and surveyed the area on behalf of the Ohio Company of Virginia — concluding the Indian Mound site was “greatly inferior” to the Point for a fort.

The town takes its name from Alexander McKee, a British Indian agent granted 1,375 acres — twice the size of today’s borough — at the mouth of Chartiers Creek. Washington dined at McKee’s eight-room “Mansion” in 1770.

Part III

Steel, rail, and a working town

The 19th and 20th centuries made McKees Rocks one of the great manufacturing engines of the Pittsburgh region. The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie (P&LE) Railroad, heavy industry along the river, and a hardworking immigrant population built a dense, proud, walkable town — much of which still stands and is ready for reuse.

Part IV

The next founding

After half a century of disinvestment, McKees Rocks is in the middle of what its strategic plan calls “a new founding” — as ambitious as the original. The restored Roxian Theatre, a revitalized Chartiers Avenue, new housing, and renewed industrial investment are bringing a new generation of pioneers to a town that has reinvented itself many times before.

Industrious people built the town in the 19th century. A new generation of pioneers is rebuilding it in the 21st.

Special thanks to the McKees Rocks Historical Society and to Fran Beck for reference material. The Historical Society maintains an active presence of meetings, events, and online resources.