Our Town: Brownsville
The Flatiron Building in Brownsville houses the Flatiron Building Heritage Center, which displays artifacts from Brownsville’s heyday, and the Frank L. Melega Museum, which focuses on the work of Melega, who was a sculptor, commercial artist and painter.
The former First Baptist Church, now abandoned and covered with vines, on Market Street in Brownsville.
For the longest time, Brownsville has been known for its precipitous and all-too-visible decline.
Other towns and cities in the Rust Belt have endured slings and arrows in recent decades, as they have lost population and industry. But the abandoned structures along Brownsville’s Market Street and its side streets have possessed an almost otherworldly quality, like the wreckage that filmmakers would recreate for dystopian, post-apocalyptic science-fiction sagas.
A once-vibrant train station shuttered and silent. A church with stained-glass windows still intact but covered in vines, shards of beer bottles on the sidewalk in front of it. Nearby, there’s a once-imposing bank that hasn’t seen a deposit in decades.
Strategically positioned along the Monongahela River and the National Road, Brownsville evolved over two centuries from being a trading post to a rail hub and then a coking center. It was once so lively that it could support several nightspots that would draw national performers and, legend has it, Ray Charles cooked up his hit “What’d I Say” during an improvisational burst at a Brownsville club in December 1958.
When the steel industry faltered in the 1970s, so did Brownsville. Its fortunes were not helped when a couple purchased many of the borough’s boarded-up buildings in the 1990s as part of an ambitious plan to refashion its waterfront as a gambling mecca. State laws were not approved that would have allowed that to happen, and the buildings were largely left to deteriorate.
As the old adage has it, though, Brownsville’s darkest hour could have occurred just before its dawn.
By Brad Hundt
A 24-unit apartment complex in a part of downtown Brownsville known as The Neck is at the leading edge of efforts to revitalize the Mon Valley community.
“Brownsville is on the upswing right now,” says Rocky Brashear, president of the Brownsville Historical Society.
Earlier this year, Trek Development Group of Pittsburgh refurbished a onetime G.C. Murphy Co. five-and-dime store into an apartment complex, and built another structure next to it that houses additional apartments. And across the street, there’s a $300,000 stage that’s been designed by students from nearby high schools. It’s the centerpiece of a new park.
The Brownsville Area Revitalization Corp. has been spearheading restoration efforts in the community, and Herb “Mitch” Mitchell, the organization’s vice president, told the Observer-Reporter in January, “A lot of things are being sparked.”
Other developments are in the works, though “nothing that we can comment on at this time,” says Brianne Mitchell, the executive director of the Revitalization Corp.
Located in Fayette County – the borough’s “suburb” West Brownsville is just across the river in Washington County – its history stretches as far back as 1754, when it’s thought that the first religious service west of the Alleghenies happened on the grounds of what is now St. Peter’s Church. The church itself is on the National Register of Historic Places, one of several locations in the borough given that designation. Others include the Thomas H. Thompson Spanish revival mansion built in 1906; Dunlap’s Creek Bridge, the first cast iron span constructed in the United States; and Nemacolin Castle, the first part of which was built in the 1780s.
By Brad Hundt
A stage in a new park along Market Street in Brownsville was designed by high school students.
Named for Thomas Brown, who purchased some of the land on which Brownsville now sits, it was a boat-building hub before railroads and the river shaped the borough’s economy and ethos. Now, Brownsville’s storied history is a draw for visitors, with Nemacolin Castle a centerpiece, Brashear says. Another attraction is the Monongahela River, Rail and Transportation Museum, located on Church Street.
“The most important thing is the history we have here in our community,” says Brownsville’s mayor, Ross Swords.
He also says that, overall, Brownsville is “slowly gaining ground and heading in the right direction.”
“It’s never going to be the way it was in the 1950s,” he says. “We’re starting to see some development.”
Happening within the vicinity of Brownsville in the weeks ahead is the National Pike Steam, Gas and Horse Association Reunion on Aug. 10-12 at the National Pike Fairgrounds outside West Brownsville. It will feature a craft show, flea market, tractor shows and more.
For information on the festival, call 412-819-0225 or visit www.nationalpike.com.
By Brad Hundt
Brownsville is home to many churches, including St. Peter’s Church, the oldest continuously operating parish in Western Pennsylvania. The first religious service beyond the Allegheny Mountains, in 1754, was believed to happened on the ground where the church is now located.