Editing Pittsburg, Kansas (section)

==History==
{{See also|History of Kansas}}

On October 23, 1864, a wagon train of refugees had come from [[Fort Smith, Arkansas]], and was escorted by troops from the [[6th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry|6th Kansas Cavalry]] under the command of Col. William Campbell.  These were local men from Cherokee, Crawford, and Bourbon counties.  Their enlistment was over, and they were on their way to [[Fort Leavenworth]] to be dismissed from service.  They ran into the 1st Indian Brigade led by Maj. Andrew Jackson Piercy near the current Pittsburg Waste Water Treatment Plant.  They continued to the north when a small group of wagons broke away in an unsuccessful rush to safety.  The Confederate troops caught up with them and burned the wagons.  The death toll was three Union soldiers and 13 civilian men who had been with the wagon train.  It was likely that one of the Confederates had also been killed.  A granite marker memorial for the "Cow Creek Skirmish" was placed near the Crawford County Historical Museum on October 30, 2011.<ref>[http://www.morningsun.net/topstories/x1535092336/Engraved-memorial-marker-dedicated-to-lives-lost-in-Cow-Creek-skirmish Engraved memorial marker dedicated to lives lost in Cow Creek Skirmish; The Morning Sun; November 1, 2011.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120404032348/http://www.morningsun.net/topstories/x1535092336/Engraved-memorial-marker-dedicated-to-lives-lost-in-Cow-Creek-skirmish |date=April 4, 2012 }}</ref>

Pittsburg sprang up in the fall of 1876 on a railroad line being built through the neighborhood.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury00chic | title=A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Crawford County, Kansas | publisher=The Lewis Publishing Company | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury00chic/page/34 34]}}</ref> It was named after [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]],<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5zdAAQAAMAAJ | title=Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Kansas State Historical Society | publisher=Kansas State Printing Plant | author=Kansas State Historical Society | year=1916 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5zdAAQAAMAAJ/page/n278 171]}}</ref> and maps of the time give the town's name as "New Pittsburgh". George Hobson and Franklin Playter are credited with being the city's founders, establishing a government after its beginnings as a coal mining camp in the 1870s. The city was incorporated in 1879.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Qi9cXyTWt9EC | title=Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume 2 | publisher=Standard Publishing Company | author=Blackmar, Frank Wilson | year=1912 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Qi9cXyTWt9EC/page/n470 480]}}</ref> The “New” was dropped upon incorporation of the city as a third class city on June 21, 1880, with M. M. Snow as its first Mayor. In 1892 it was advanced to a city of the second class, in 1905 Pittsburg attained the rank of first class.

[[File:3 of Roger Puta&#039;s Photos of the KCS Southern Belle in 1967 (27024587613).jpg|thumb|The Kansas City Southern's [[Southern Belle (KCS train)|''Southern Belle'']] at Pittsburg in 1967]]
[[File:Colgan church.jpg|thumb|upright|Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church (2012)]]
The first dwelling was built by J. T. Roach in July 1876.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.pittks.org/index.aspx?nid=362 |title=History of Pittsburg, Official Homepage of the city |access-date=January 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910103253/http://www.pittks.org/index.aspx?NID=362 |archive-date=September 10, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The first post office in Pittsburg was established in August, 1876. The post office's name was shortened from "New Pittsburgh" to "Pittsburgh" in 1881 and to "Pittsburg" in 1894.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/page:2/county:CR |title=Kansas Post Offices, 1828-1961, page 2 |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |access-date=6 June 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131009175340/http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/page:2/county:CR |archive-date=October 9, 2013 }}</ref> The latter renaming came after the [[United States Board on Geographic Names]], in the interest of standardization, recommended that the 'h' be dropped from place names ending in "burgh".<ref>{{cite book|title=First Report of the United States Board on Geographic Names. 1890–1891|url=https://archive.org/details/firstreportofunit00unitrich|access-date=15 August 2018|year=1892|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|location=Washington, DC|page=[https://archive.org/details/firstreportofunit00unitrich/page/8 8]}}</ref>

Pittsburg is the home to [[Pittsburg State University]], founded in 1903 as a [[Normal school|normal training institution]]. Through the years the college became more diversified in its aims and goals, so that it became a multi-purpose institution. It has always had a strong manual and industrial arts program and has trained many of the area's public and private school teachers.

In 1879, two miners from Joplin began the first commercial attempts at mining in close proximity of Broadway Street. A relic of the city's coal mining days was the [[Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company]], founded in 1885, and one of the oldest continuously running coal companies in the United States (even though its headquarters moved several years ago to [[Denver, Colorado]] after the Kansas mines closed). In September 2007, [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]] which owned the company, merged it with its Molycorp Inc. coal mining division to form Chevron Mining, thus ending the Pittsburg corporate name.<ref>[http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2007/11/19/story7.html?jst=s_cn_hl Chevron executive bullish on growth of coal industry – Denver Business Journal – November 16, 2007]</ref>  Midway referred to a coal camp in eastern [[Crawford County, Kansas]] that was "midway" between [[Baxter Springs, Kansas]] and [[Fort Scott, Kansas]].<ref>[http://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/1972/72_2_powell.htm Former Mining Communities of the Cherokee-Crawford Coal Field of Southeastern Kansas – Kansas Historical Quarterly – Summer 1972]</ref> [[Kenneth A. Spencer]], whose father was among the founders of the company was to play an important role in Kansas and Missouri philanthropy.{{citation needed|date=March 2011}}

Pittsburg was also the most heavily unionized city in Kansas at the beginning of the 20th century.<ref>Randy Roberts, Janette Mauk: Pittsburgh, Introduction, p. 9., 2009, {{ISBN|9780738561165}}</ref> In addition to some coal mining, the economic base of the city now rests on industry.

The city has a rich cultural heritage from many Southern and Eastern European mine workers who settled in and around Pittsburg and Southeastern Kansas.  It is situated in a once productive coal field.  It now relies heavily on education and government-related employment.