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I should have put a “-1” at the end of that title. When I went through my pictures, I realized I have quite a few in this batch.
As you might expect, Ohio River Boulevard runs along the Ohio River, the east side, to be specific. If you’re not familiar with U.S. rivers, the Ohio starts in Pittsburgh at the “Point” where the Monongahela River, flowing north from West Virginia, meets the Allegheny flowing south from norther Pennsylvania. In the city, near the point, Pittsburgh is a vibrant, busy and exciting place. Downstream on the Ohio, it’s a different story.
When I was growing up in the late 50’s and 60s, the Ohio River, as well as the Monongahela was home to heavy industry/ One such place was Ambridge, PA. Incorporated in 1905, this community was named after U S Steel’s American Bridge Division. If you drive along the Interstate highway system, chances are good that you’ll drive over a bridge resting on steel forged and fabricated here.
Ambridge began as a steel town in 1905 and thrived for many years until the steel industry collapse in the early 1980’s. The legacy of American Bridge can be seen today across the country, from the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. During these years, many other companies in the steel business came to Ambridge. Companies like Armco (formerly Spang-Chalfant), Wykoff, A.M. Byers, H.K. Porter, National Electric, Babcock and Wilcox, H.H. Robertson, and others set up shops in Ambridge and employed thousands. The town’s population and the steel industry’s production peeked in the early 1940’s when the steel companies and the town switched gears to support the war. The American Bridge Company, for example, converted from building bridges and river barges to building LST ships for the Navy and Coast Guard. The population swelled as people came to work for the war effort. Even though much of the steel industry has long moved away, Centria, Inc., a company created by merging H.H. Robertson and several other small steel fabricating companies, maintains facilities in Ambridge on a portion of the old H.H. Robertson site and has been steadily growing for the past several years.
Borough of Ambridge home page
Today, most of the mills in the Pittsburgh area are gone, but the people and the spirit remain. All of these communities are working hard to rebuild, to attract new business, and to provide a good home to its residents. These towns are finding new ways to reuse the facilities, and take advantage of the river, the railroads, the highways and the people. I think there will always be an Ambridge, PA.
I will have more pictues next week, and a little more history of the area. Today, I hope you enjoy the gallery. I also hope you will visit some of the other people who have linked posts to this page in the comment section. As always, these will all be available again on Sunday in the weekly recap.
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All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
No Facilities 
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