Pittsburgers: bad spellers with memory issues

Years ago, when I was a teenager in Pittsburgh, I firmly believed there was only one Pittsburgh in America and no one could tell me differently. It turned out that I was right.

According to Rand McNally’s Atlas of the United States, Wikipedia and various websites, there are 13 other cities or towns with the name Pittsburgh, but they are all spelled without the “h.”

It seems uncanny, especially when most of the 13 other Pittsburgs claim to have been named after or to honor the original city of Pittsburgh, Pa. The “h” was simply left out due to misspellings and became accepted usage. Well, at least a few of these 13 Pittsburgs were named after people named Pitts (as opposed to our namesake William Pitt).

So, where are these 13 misspelled Pittsburghs?

There’s one in California, in Contra Costa County southwest of Sacramento with 63,000 residents. Also a steel-making town, it started in 1839 and was first named New York Landing. Its residents voted in 1911 to change their city’s name to honor our Pittsburgh, but the misspelling persisted.

The Pittsburg in Illinois, east of St. Louis on Route 119 in Williamson County, started in 1906 as a coal-mining town. It since has declined to a population of about 600. It was named after our Pittsburgh, but the Illinois Pittsburgers also forgot the “h.”

In Indiana, there’s a Pittsburg in Tippecanoe County dating to 1836. Population: 300. It’s located off I-65 in the Lafayette metro area. Its post office name was misspelled after 1894.

In Kansas, another Pittsburg (population 20,500) is located in Crawford County in the southeast corner of the state. It also was named to honor Pittsburgh when it was incorporated as a city in 1879, but the “h” was dropped, also in 1894. I don’t know what was happening with “h’s” in 1894.

A tiny town of fewer than 100, the Pittsburg in nearby Iowa is west of Burlington in Montgomery County. Founded in 1839, it was originally called Rising Sun, but was renamed to honor Pittsburgh, Pa. Apparently no one caught the spelling error.

Theone in Kentucky was named forPittsburgh when it was established in 1882, It soon forgot the “h,” too.This town of 600 is in Laurel Countyon Route 25, south of I-75.

Michigan once had two Pittsburgs. One (pop. 100) remains. It’s in Shiawassee County on Route 52 northeast of Lansing. Dating to the 1830s, it was named for Moses Pitts, the town’s owner. The second Pittsburg, an iron-mining town in the state’s Upper Peninsula, was named after our Pittsburgh, although “h”-less. It died by 1900.

Missouri has a Pittsburg (pop. 2,200) named after its 1864 early settlers, the Pitts family. It’s just north of Springfield in Hickory County. No misspelling here.

The Pittsburg in New Hampshire was named after William Pitt, British prime minister and namesake of our Pittsburgh, and dates to 1810. With a population of 900, it’s in Coos County near the Canadian border.

Ohio’s Pittsburg was called Arnettsville before 1911, when it was renamed after our city. Population: 400. Location: northwest of Dayton in Darke County.

Oklahoma’s Pittsburg started with its county, also called Pittsburg, in 1911 – both named after our city. It was previously a Choctaw Indian village. With 280 residents, it’s southeast of Oklahoma City.

In Oregon in 1892, they renamed their town of fewer than 100 after our Pittsburgh, but soon forgot the “h.” It’s in Columbia County on Route 47 north of Portland.

The Texas town of Pittsburg, named after William Pitts – not a prime minister – incorporated as a city in 1891. With a population of 4,500, it’s on Route 271 in Camp County east of Dallas and is full of Dallas Cowboys fans. This became evident in 1996 when the town changed its name for a few weeks to “Cowboys, Texas,” when the football Cowboys played the Steelers of the correctly spelled city of Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl.

So there. Pittsburgh remains unique in its name, perhaps because none of the other cities and towns knew how to spell our name correctly or just forgot.

Of course, our Pittsburgh is unique for many other reasons -its three rivers, its continued variety of steel-related plants and businesses, 446 bridges and hundreds of hills, plus its 2.4 million metro-area residents.

Pittsburgh also is the second largest city in Pennsylvania and an official part of the Keystone state since 1785, the year before the PostGazette’s ancestor paper was founded. How could anyone forget?