Centuries Later, the Rivers That Run Through Pittsburgh Still Keep Businesses Afloat

 

December 1, 2024 - As the Gateway Clipper made a slow turn to head up the Allegheny River one day earlier this year, Captain Joe DiNome said transporting sightseers daily on the big blue and white replica of a 19th century paddleboat really doesn’t feel like work. Pointing at the city’s iconic skyline, he said, “That’s my office view.”

And yet, work it is. The Gateway Clipper fleet can carry as many as half a million people a year — tourists and dinner cruise guests as well as sports fans looking for a ferry ride to the stadium.

Pittsburgh’s three rivers — the Monongahela, the Allegheny and the Ohio — are inextricable from the city’s image and charm, but the waterways are also an economic engine. From industrial tow boats pushing barges of coal and road salt to the profusion of recreational craft that appear for every major fireworks display, the rivers are vital to the region’s business.

That’s been true since the first Frenchman put shovel in ground to dig the first post hole for the first fort, but today it’s easier to miss. Officials talk “eds and meds,” robotics, and work to attract visitors with events like the 2026 NFL draft.

Yet the rivers made Pittsburgh, lend it resilience still.

The Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers operates 23 locks and dams on the three rivers — infrastructure that the agency claims saves shippers and consumers approximately $4 billion in transportation costs compared to other methods such as by road or rail. The corps reports that 175 million tons of cargo and 22,000 recreational vessels passed through the locks in fiscal 2024.

“There’s millions and millions of tons of products that move on the waterways that mostly go unseen and unheard,” said Gary Statler, senior vice president of river operations at Canonsburg-based Campbell Transportation Co., which operates the slow-moving barges that are a regular sight on Pittsburgh’s rivers.

The economic power of the trio of rivers drives the Army Corps to keep working on improvements to the locks and dams, industry groups to push for investment from the federal government and small businesses like boat rental operators to settle in along the shores.

The story of economic opportunity and Pittsburgh’s rivers begins in the least studied, least promoted era of the city’s history — the time after George Washington left and before Andrew Carnegie arrived.

“I don’t think we have a good, clear sense of just how dramatic the rise of the steamboat was when it was at its height here, and what that did to the local place,” said Leslie Przybylek, a curator at the Sen. John Heinz History Center in the Strip District.

From the first steamboat launched from Pittsburgh in 1811 until railroads began taking over, daily life was built around the waterways. “Everything about the entirety of the city would have been focused on the river in a way that was lost and erased when Pittsburgh became an increasingly industrial place after the Civil War,” said Ms. Przybylek.

In 1838, British engineer David Stevenson wrote of seeing Pittsburgh as a first-time visitor. “Here, in the very heart of the continent of North America, the appearance of a large shipping port, containing a fleet of thirty or forty streamers moored in the river, cannot fail to surprise him,” he wrote.

“His astonishment is not a little increased if he chances to witness the arrival of one of those steamers … but his wonder only attains its height when he is told that this same vessel has come direct from New Orleans, in the Gulf of Mexico, and that fifteen days and nights have been occupied in making this inland voyage, of no less than two thousand miles, along the meanderings of the Mississippi and Ohio.”

The Mon Wharf, now a parking spot for daily Downtown commuters, served the early 1800s as a site where steamboats docked. Warehouses and office buildings abutted the slopes of the wharf. Hordes of people — many living in a heavily residential Downtown — gathered to trade goods and produce fresh from the last steamboat to dock.

The surge of goods arriving didn’t just include staples like sugar, wine and produce; fine arts flowed over the rivers into Pittsburgh, from art to crystal chandeliers.

Pittsburgh in turn supplied the nation’s Western expansion, sending building supplies, farm produce, iron works and glass products downriver, along with component parts for steamboat repairs. “I think the big thing about Pittsburgh is that it became the gathering place for not just the boats, but the business of it,” said Ms. Przybylek. “Especially early on, it wasn’t rivaled by anyone else.”

The very first Mississippi riverboat — the New Orleans — was built here and, when it launched in 1811, revolutionized transportation along America’s inland waterways by making upstream cargo travel possible.

By the 1820s, steamboats had become the dominant mode of transportation in the trans-Appalachian west, helping power a shift in the country’s economy from reliance on international trade to domestic commerce.

By the 1830s, Western Pennsylvania manufacturers were building nearly 40% of all steamboats in the United States.

By 1850, Pittsburgh was the largest steam engine manufacturer in the nation.

“By Western Pennsylvania standards, this was the industrial revolution right in their face, with hissing steam and belching smoke,” said John Kudlik, a former history professor at Allegheny County Community College who — in his retirement — has taken to exploring the history of Pittsburgh’s steamboat era.

Speed, convenience and price points favored the industry. Steamboats glided over the water at a much faster pace and for a much lower fare than navigating rough terrain on horseback or with an ox cart.

Travelers bought into the new technology, too. Newspapers announced scheduled arrivals and departures of steamboats along the wharf.

People boarded, making their way either to the upper deck, where fine furniture and plush carpet decorated passenger cabins, or to the lower deck, where passengers slept on their own bedrolls and endured often harsh conditions, braving weather and waves in return for a cheap fare and fast trip.

“If you were a working-class family, you could get on a boat for a cheap fare, meals included,” Mr. Kudlik said. “It was an adventure.” Lower deck passage cost $1 for ticket to Cincinnati, $6 for one to New Orleans.

“They wrote about these boats as if they were magic carpets,” said Ms. Przybylek. “ … It’s not just the products, it’s ideas that move from community to community much faster.”

As more people were coming and going from the expanding metropolis by steamboat, Pittsburgh’s population grew from 4,768 in 1820 to 46,601 by 1850. 

The network of trade and commerce bound together small towns and growing cities throughout the Mississippi Basin. Before a steel-making Pittsburgh would become a part of the Rust Belt, the city had been integrally connected with river cities that shared a reliance on the nation’s inland waterways.

“It basically shaped almost everything about how people were living their lives, whether you were actually involved with the making of a boat or you sold a product that could get to the market much more effectively on it,” Ms. Przybylek said

Small, riverside communities like Elizabeth and California in the Mon Valley built steamboat hulls that were then brought to Pittsburgh for finishing touches, a system that rewarded innovation that kept the industry cutting edge.

By mid-century, steamboats in Pittsburgh could carry crews of about 50 men, and records show a total of more than 8,300 were employed on the Ohio River system in 1851. Their wages varied, but the dangerous work just a foot above water as heat blasted from the boat’s boiler often amounted to a decent living.

Women, particularly those from boat families, bought steamboat shares in a male-dominated industry, and some were able to make a fortune without stepping onto the water, Mr. Kudlik said.

Then it all gave way as railroads came to dominate freight and passenger travel after the Civil War.

“Rail can run all year … you weren’t at the mercy of low water, or going to be crushed in an ice jam,” said Ms. Przybylek. “You could essentially go anywhere that you could lay tracks.”

Railroads, both by design and simple geography, cut through the boatyards. “By the 1870s, most of the boatyards in Pittsburgh were finished,” said Mr. Kudlik.

Small communities like Elizabeth and California crumbled without the steamboats, but the city was already reinventing itself. 

“The key with Pittsburgh is by the 1870s and ‘80s, this place was humming with an entirely different set of industries,” said Ms. Przybylek. “It truly became the Steel City, and it became a different place.”

A century later, as Pittsburgh reinvents itself yet again as a hub of tech and medicine, the three rivers still hum with economic activity. Barges and big passenger vessels, Ms. Przybylek said, are remnants of the steamboat era.

Aside from an occasional exclamation of “Ooo!” when a visitor sees a tow boat pushing an array of coal barges past Point State Park, the commercial offshoot of steamboats has become a silent neighbor to the city.

While not as glamorous, the barges remain a linchpin of the region’s economy, in part because the nation’s transportation systems are overloaded.

Over a century after railroads took westward travel and trade by storm, rail capacity can’t keep up with modern demand, said Mary Ann Bucci, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, whose district covers 13 counties and more than 200 miles of commercially-navigable waterways in Western Pennsylvania.

Trucks don’t have enough drivers, and — even if Pittsburgh’s innovative tech industry manages to conquer that problem with self-driving semis — the more trucks on the road, the more traffic for everyone.

“You’re not gonna have the infrastructure to handle increasing traffic … and water is one way to make sure you handle it,” she said.

One 15-barge tow can carry goods equal to 216 rail cars and 1,050 trucks, according to the Port of Pittsburgh. 

Those who work on the inland waterways argue that busy roads and rail congestion have reverted the efficiency advantage. 

“This is the sort of slow and unsexy way to move stuff, but it's vital. It keeps rail rates low and competitive. It's the best on earth for the environment,” said Deb Calhoun, senior vice president of the Waterways Council, a national industry group that advocates for an efficient and well-maintained inland waterways system.

Ms. Calhoun thinks a steamboat captain who worked the rivers back in the early days would marvel at the industry that has grown on the rivers, at all their multi-uses and complexities. For example, the massive Shell cracker plant in Beaver County sits at that location because of the river, she said: In addition to moving its commodities by water, all the walls and steel beams to build the cracker facility came by barge.

But this type of traffic on the rivers has been slowing down in the region. 

In the early 2000s, Pittsburgh was ranked the top inland freight terminal, handling over 52 million tons of freight.

By 2022, the freight volume had fallen to 18 million tons, said Ms. Bucci.

The decline can be largely attributed to the decline of coal, which made up 75% of exports at the height of the industry. When the EPA started increasing environmental regulation of coal production, many of Pittsburgh’s power plants shut down or shifted to natural gas.

“We’re still using coal-fired plants to power electric vehicles,” said Matthew Pavlosky, the public relations manager at Port Pitt. “The goal is great, but the infrastructure hasn’t caught up yet,” he said. “For the time being, it does hurt our industry.”

Barges have the smallest carbon footprint among surface transportation modes: Rail generates 43% more carbon dioxide emissions, while trucks generate more than 800%, according to the Waterways Council. And Ms. Calhoun said the waterways are also moving wind turbine blades by barge, so she’s sure there will always be uses for commercial use of the rivers.

But the river’s infrastructure needs to be updated. “The volume of freight is going down,” she said. “If that commercial traffic goes away ... You don’t have anybody paying for the infrastructure.”

Most locks and dams in the Pittsburgh region were built in the early 1900s, when smaller, skinnier barges were used. Deckhands now have to break them apart to push them through a lock, and then rewire them together to continue along, a taxing process.

The Ohio River is home to the smallest locks in the nation, Ms. Bucci said, limiting the number of barges that can be attached to a tow boat. Lock chambers on the Ohio are now 600 feet long — that’s after they’ve been upgraded from the original 360 feet long — and can fit nine barges. South of Cairo, Illinois, you could see up to 40 barges on a single tow, she said.

“This is a system that’s been out of sight, out of mind over the last 20 years,” said Ms. Calhoun.

Pittsburgh rivers might not carry the same volume as other waterways, but advocates believe their development — as well as funding for increased hours of operation — is critical to the region.

“My question to the [Army Corps of Engineers] is, ‘Is this transportation or not?’ Because I don’t see tunnels going down because there’s less traffic at night,” said Ms. Bucci.

In recent years, federal funding for improvements has steadily increased after organizations like the Waterways Council have lobbied for money toward projects like lock modernization. The Army Corps in the midst of a $2.1 billion upgrade of the locks and dams on the upper Ohio.

About 65% of the nation’s agricultural exports are moving on its inland waterways — an issue that elected officials take note of when given the right data points, but that isn’t always on top of the spending priority list.

Finding workers interested in being on the rivers has also proven a challenge, said Mr. Statler.

Though you can make six figures by working as few as six months a year, it’s hard to find the right person who wants to live on a boat, away from their families for weeks on end. It’s not easy work, but those who choose it can come in as a deckhand without a college degree and work their way up to captain.

Many just don’t know it’s an option. There’s a shared consensus among officials: Pittsburgh’s commercial water traffic has become a forgotten industry.

“In a town like Elizabeth, I’m stunned by what they know when it comes to the river. They know the commodities coming through, people who work on the barges, those types of things,” said Mr. Pavlosky. “The average city folk probably doesn’t.”

Pittsburghers aren’t oblivious to their rivers.

“They certainly have an appreciation for the fact that they live on this river and the city is built around the river. But I’m not sure they understand its sheer capacity,” said Ms. Calhoun.

Overall, nearly 92,000 people work in river freight in the Pittsburgh region, according to the National Waterways Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Matt Longshore, captain of a Campbell tugboat, went to college for a half a year before deciding it wasn’t for him. He ended up at Campbell, where he’s already making what would have been his college debt at 23 years old.

“Probably one of the more enjoyable parts about the job was just coming around that bend,” he said earlier this year as his tug inched into view of the Downtown skyline. “Yeah, there's the whole entire city. You’ve got to pay for views like this.”

On Pittsburgh’s increasingly recreational, and increasingly clean waterways, the entertainment part of river travel is booming.

With its open decks and decorative paddlewheel, the Gateway Clipper — one Pittsburgh’s distinctive tourist attractions — is most obvious descendant of the steamboat era.

Owner Terry Wiriginis remembers when he was only five and his Uncle Jack, hearing news that the rivers would be cleaned up, proposed the family start a boat company.

“Yeah, Jack, go find a boat,” his grandparents told his uncle.

In the winter of 1957, Jack Goessling made a $50 downpayment and brought home from Lake Erie a passenger boat that could accommodate fewer than 100 people. By 1958, the Wiriginis family was offering sightseeing cruises.

“There was nobody here from the ‘30s or ‘40s that had a passenger vessel that was here all the time,” Mr. Wirginis said.

The business took off, tacking on two more boats the next year and holding the first dinner cruise in 1962. They teamed up with Bob Wholey, the famed seafood market owner in the Strip District, to serve BBQ chicken and a slab of ice cream wrapped in paper — Mr. Wirginis remembers hurrying to eat his meal so the ice cream wouldn’t melt.

Today, the company runs five boats and holds everything from weddings to dance cruises. Over the years, it’s become a popular way to get to the North Shore stadiums by shuttle, becoming “a version of Pittsburgh's tailgate party.”

The Clipper is a family business that takes in a little more than 300,000 passengers a year. Mr. DiNome, a Clipper captain, commended Mr. Wirginis’s business adaptations — “He knows how to make money,” he said, explaining how the company took over photography and catering.

Mr. Wirginis attends a monthly passage vessel association meeting with waterway operators across the country, allowing the Clipper to collaborate interests and legislative demands with similar businesses elsewhere. “I don’t think we could survive individually,” he said.

The pandemic has had long-lasting effects from which they are still rebounding. They once carried about half a million passengers a year. He made the choice to stop buying large passenger boats, after determining there were only 30 trips made over a two-year span that couldn’t have fit on a smaller boat.

But he’s not worried. The summer months draw a big crowd, especially Pirates fans, and he’s fixed up a lot of old boats, stripping carpet and galleys to give them longer service lives.

Tiki boats began popping up on the rivers in spring 2018. Though small, they’re hard to miss. The 16-foot octagonal vessels with straw roofs contrast with the steel-gray waters and corporate towers of Pittsburgh.

“We give them two hours to feel like they're somewhere else, somewhere tropical,” said Dale McCue, the owner of Cruisin’ Tikis Pittsburgh. During a winter of visiting some friends in Florida, Mr. McCue saw a video of Tiki boats and immediately thought: This would be great for Pittsburgh.

Even during the pandemic, Tiki boats thrived when people couldn’t travel to Florida or the Bahamas. Mr. McCue said the success of the boats — which have completed almost 6,000 charters since spring 2018, with over 33,000 guests — have spurred a myriad of recreational businesses on the water.

“At that time, Pittsburgh really only had the Gateway Clipper and the Just Ducky boats,” he said. “I like to take credit for our company being the catalyst for an explosion of on-the-water businesses.”

The Tiki boats know their place on the water: hugging the shoreline out of the channel — the shipping lane for barges and the Clipper. 

Like the Clipper and other tourism-related ventures, the Tiki boat business is challenged by wider economic trends like inflation. “We’re disposable income,” Mr. McCue said. “If it’s between putting $50 worth of gas in your vehicle so they can get to work for a week, or spending money on a Tiki cruise, they’re gonna pick the fuel.”

But he sees opportunity as well. Mr. McCue noted that though the Pittsburgh waterfronts have seen development, they still lack a draw for entertainment — there may be PNC Park, but there aren’t many easy access points, like restaurants, on the river.

“There’s something about sitting along the water, having a drink or eating, and a lot of those businesses that are in that position thrive,” he said.

Recent plans unveiled for Downtown redevelopment include just such venues.

Pittsburgh has also seen a rise in recreational boating. Allegheny County is now home to the highest percentage of boat ownership per capita in the state.

Boat rental companies have contributed to the rise, which can carry a bit of stigma. Recreational boaters can be a dangerous addition to the waters if they don’t know what they’re doing, Shane McFall said.

Mr. McFall started his boat rental business, Pittsburgh Boat Rentals, in 2021 with one boat. Year over year, he’s seen 30%-35% growth, he said.

“Pittsburgh is a growing boat community, and I'm sure it's been set up for barges, but I don't know if it's ever been really set up for recreational boating,” he said.

He keeps boaters in the Pittsburgh pool, away from locks and dams, but he worries about the rise in traffic and the easy licensing process to operate. Like Mr. McCue, Mr. McFall also sees the potential for his business to be more lucrative down the road.

Though commercial and passenger travel have become two separate industries since the days of the steamboat, they coexist, said Mr. Wirginis.

“It would be terrible to knock out this kind of traffic moving on the river,” he said as a group of barges moved slowly up river, past the Gateway Clipper. “This is the highway.”

Mr. McCue agrees.

“We tell people about the importance of these rivers. We pass coal barges … so we explain to them the importance of those entities on the river. We let them know, ‘Hey, this is how you keep your lights on,’” said Mr. McCue. “These are very important parts of the river that people take for granted.”

Though today the people of Pittsburgh might not understand the wonder of steamboats, to Ms. Przybylek, it all goes back to the fundamental nature of the river. “Don’t lose sight of the fact that underneath it all, it’s the rivers that are still there,” she said. 

“It ultimately will not be controlled by any of us.”