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Community Spotlight—Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village and Fort Pitt Museum

The Community Spotlight series features the efforts Rivers of Steel’s partner organizations, along with collaborative partnerships, that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the communities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

By Gita Michulka, Contributing Writer

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter

Amplifying Historic Voices of Western Pennsylvania

Taking an authentic look back in time over 400 years has a deeper meaning when you can hear directly from descendants of the people who lived in this region during that time. New fall programming at Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village and the Fort Pitt Museum aims to amplify the perspectives of native tribes within the historic stories that shape western Pennsylvania.

Meadowcroft recently hosted Life with a Shawnee Family, a two-day event where ten members of federally recognized American Indian tribes traveled to western Pennsylvania to participate in recreations throughout the site.

Visitors at Meadowcroft, a 275-acre site in Washington County, have a unique ability to travel through several distinct periods of time. The Rockshelter, a National Historic Landmark, houses the earliest known campsite in North America, with signs of life dating from 19,000 years ago. Nearby, there are three other outdoor historic areas: a sixteenth-century Monongahela Indian Village that looks at life after agriculture but prior to European settlement; an eighteenth-century frontier trading post; and a nineteenth-century rural village, which includes a single-family home, a one-room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, and a covered bridge.

The “Life with a Shawnee Family” event.

For the Life with a Shawnee Family event, the focus in each of these areas across Meadowcroft was a historical interpretation from an American Indian tribe’s perspective. Tribal members were located in the Monongahela Indian Village to talk about pre-contact life and in the eighteenth century frontier area to talk about life during that period. The program also aimed to offer a native perspective on the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the effect it had on the indigenous people. Across the site, members of the tribe also offered visitors a chance to see how tasks were performed by their ancestors in the early days of agriculture and how Ohio Valley tribes lived off the land.

“One of the major initiatives that we’re partnering with the Fort Pitt staff on is what we’re calling our American Indian initiative,” says David Scofield, Director of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village. “We’re developing relationships with the tribes that were here historically but were forcibly removed and pushed west to reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma or north to New York. The Shawnee tribes, the Delaware tribes, Seneca, and the Seneca-Cayuga.”

Scofield continues, “Our goal is to involve those tribes that were here historically as we develop programming and we develop exhibits so that they can have a voice here once again in a place where they no longer have a physical presence but were a major part of our region’s history.”

At the Fort Pitt Museum, the timeline picks up where Meadowcroft leaves off, highlighting the mid-to-late eighteenth-century wars that further shaped our region. Displays in the museum showcase Pittsburgh’s pivotal role in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution and also what life was like in the early days as the city was developing.

Cooking demonstration at the Fort Pitt Museum.

A recent program at Fort Pitt also highlighted the interactions between the historic tribes that once called Pittsburgh home, including a cooking demonstration from Shideezhi Emarthla, a citizen of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. The program was held on the museum lawn in Point State Park and was free to the public.

Additionally, the Fort Pitt Museum has opened a new exhibit titled Guyasuta: The Life & Legend of a Seneca Chief. The exhibit looks at the life of one of Pittsburgh’s eighteenth-century leaders and includes the bronze scale model for the “Points of View” sculpture on Mount Washington by local sculptor Jim West.

Point of View sculpture on Mount Washington, courtesy of Jim West.

The effect of physically being at these historical sites is never lost on Justin Meinert, education and living history manager at the Fort Pitt Museum. “At Fort Pitt you get to experience the historical significance of Point State Park and be in the atmosphere of downtown Pittsburgh,” he says. “While at Meadowcroft, you are standing in a historically significant spot of 19,000 years of human inhabitation, and for a slight moment may be able to feel as if you are in a 1620s Monongahela Indian Village or eighteenth-century town—and all the while you are surrounded by the best views Western Pennsylvania’s countryside has to offer.”

“By implementing American Indian Programing—mainly living history programs—at both sites, it allows not only a large, diverse visitor base to experience the programs, but our presenters themselves,” says Meinert.

Scofield agrees. “Because of our American Indian initiative, we have cooperated in both directions where, you know, Fort Pitt staff will come here and help us with programming, and then we’ve participated in programs there as well,” he says. “So we’ve been doing that a little bit, but this is a growing initiative, and I expect a lot more of that over time.”

Life with a Shawnee Family and these recent programs at Fort Pitt were funded in part by the Rivers of Steel Mini-Grant Program. Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village and the Fort Pitt Museum are part of the Senator John Heinz History Center, a Smithsonian affiliate that also houses the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum and the Detre Library and Archives.

Upcoming fall programming at Meadowcroft includes Archaeology Day, in partnership with the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology; Insider Tours of the Rockshelter with James M. Adovasio, Ph.D., lead archaeologist on the site; and a Taffy Pull and Fall Finale. Visit heinzhistorycenter.org/Meadowcroft for details. The Fort Pitt Museum offers both guided and self-guided tours that meet the needs of a variety of audiences. For a listing of exhibits and events, visit heinzhistorycenter.org/fort-pitt.

All images courtesy of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village and Fort Pitt Museum, except where noted.

About the Mini-Grant Program

Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program assists heritage-related sites and organizations as well as municipalities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to develop new and innovative programs, partnerships, exhibits, tours, and other initiatives. Funded projects support heritage tourism, enhance preservation efforts, involve the stewardship of natural resources, encourage outdoor recreation, and include collaborative partnerships. Through these efforts, Rivers of Steel seeks to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the industrial and cultural heritage that defines southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one of twelve supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Funding is provided via DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program and the Environmental Stewardship Fund to Rivers of Steel, which administers the Mini-Grant Program. Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village and Fort Pitt Museum is one of eight organizations who received Mini-Grant funding through this program in 2022.

Gita Michulka is a Pittsburgh-based marketing and communications consultant with over 15 years of experience promoting our region’s arts, recreation, and nonprofit assets.  

If you’d like to know more about community projects supported by the Mini-Grant Program, read Gita’s recent article about the West Overton Village and Museums.

The West Overton Distilling Company, part of the West Overton Village and Museums

Community Spotlight—West Overton Village and Museums

The Community Spotlight series features the efforts Rivers of Steel’s partner organizations, along with collaborative partnerships, that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the communities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

By Gita Michulka, Contributing Writer

Finding Your Way to West Overton—New Exhibits and Wayfinding to Tell a Broader Story of the Overholt Homestead

In a nutshell, the West Overton Village and Museums (WOVM) is a collection of nineteen historic buildings nestled amongst thirty acres—the homestead of Abraham Overholt and birthplace of his grandson, Henry Clay Frick. The German Mennonite village was established in the early 1800s and soon blossomed into a hub of industry. And though the story of the Overholts is fairly well known, new exhibits and wayfinding are helping guests of the village explore how much more there is to the site’s history.

“This started as a family farm in 1803, but by 1880 it had just blossomed into this industrial community, built around a rye whiskey distillery, a grist mill, a coal mine, a coverlet weaving business, and all the auxiliary businesses needed to make all of this operate,” says Aaron Hollis, co-executive director of WOVM.

A lot is known, documented, and celebrated about the Overholt family. Visitors to West Overton can tour a museum dedicated to the industrial enterprises of the family, as well as walk through preserved rooms in the 1838 Overholt Homestead and tour the springhouse where Frick was born. But WOVM wanted to dig deeper and has recently unveiled a new exhibit that shines a light on the hundreds of residents who made a living as mill workers, coal miners, coopers, rail workers, and store clerks.

“You know, the Overholts are a wealthy, prolific, large family. Fricks, even more so. So people found their stories, their images, everything worth preserving. We have our museum, we have websites, we have photo albums—we even have albums of hair of the Overholts,” says Hollis with a laugh.

Hollis is eager to share more about the lesser-known residents of West Overton. “We were able to go through ledgers of the Overholt company store and pick out names. And as best we could, we researched these residents through tax records, through census records, what they bought and sold in the store—just trying to scrape together details of these people’s lives to try to tell stories of this community through their eyes and see how they were impacted and also impacted the industrialization happening around them.”

This new exhibit is now part of the permanent exhibitions at West Overton Village and Museums, and museum staff are hopeful that over the years, as people come to tour the site, they will recognize their ancestors on display and reach out to share more.

West Overton Distilling Company Products

Rye Whiskey at West Overton

The rebirth of an Overholt legacy is also on display these days at WOVM.

“We started making whiskey here on site in our new education distillery for the first time since prohibition,” says Hollis. “It had been a hundred years, almost exactly, from when the stills last ran here and when we were able to reopen a distillery here on site.”

Visitors can now tour the pre-Civil War stock barn that WOVM renovated to become the West Overton Distilling Company. And even though it is outfitted with brand new equipment, the style of whiskey that is being produced is a similar product to what Abraham Overholt and family would have enjoyed at the height of the region’s industrial era.

“It’s not like we could turn on a hundred-year-old still,” laughs Hollis. “But we are making a very similar style product—Monongahela Rye. And visitors can tour the distillery as part of their museum experience, sample the product, and buy cocktails and bottles as well.”

Wayfinding at West Overton

Hollis notes that guests are welcome to tour the grounds even when WOVM staff are not present. “If you come here on a day that we are closed, you can still walk around, read signs about the buildings, and still have a valuable experience, even if you’re not in person with a tour guide.”

A self-guided walking tour booklet is available for the site, which includes historical notes about the land and settlement along with particular attractions.

Thanks in part to funding from a Rivers of Steel Mini-Grant, WOVM has begun to implement the first phase of a wayfinding project that will enhance guest experiences both during and outside of museum hours. Signs will be installed to aid with parking and site directions, as well as signage on the main attractions for a more interactive and educational experience. Over time, the museum hopes to add more interpretive signs throughout the village that will highlight the key aspects of West Overton from a century ago for a more thorough understanding of WOVM, its history, and its relevance to the region.

No matter how you experience the attractions at West Overton Village and Museums, Hollis hopes you’ll take a minute to reflect on the spaces themselves. “The beautiful thing about this settlement is that these buildings—they’re all original, they’re all authentic. I think that’s what, in part, makes West Overton so unique—all the buildings that we have here are the original structures, and the site is in its original layout. When you tour the Homestead, you are sharing the floor with Abraham Overholt and Henry Clay Frick and people of the 19th century, and that really offers such a unique connection to our region’s past.”

West Overton Village and Museums is located in Scottdale, PA, and is open Thursdays through Sundays from 10am to 4pm (the last tour begins at 3pm). Visit westovertonvillage.org for more details and seasonal events. 

All images courtesy of West Overton Village and Museums.

About the Mini-Grant Program

Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program assists heritage-related sites and organizations as well as municipalities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to develop new and innovative programs, partnerships, exhibits, tours, and other initiatives. Funded projects support heritage tourism, enhance preservation efforts, involve the stewardship of natural resources, encourage outdoor recreation, and include collaborative partnerships. Through these efforts, Rivers of Steel seeks to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the industrial and cultural heritage that defines southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one of twelve supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Funding is provided via DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program and the Environmental Stewardship Fund to Rivers of Steel, which administers the Mini-Grant Program. The Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy is one of eight organizations who received Mini-Grant funding through this program in 2022.

Gita Michulka is a Pittsburgh-based marketing and communications consultant with over 15 years of experience promoting our region’s arts, recreation, and nonprofit assets.  

If you’d like to know more about community projects supported by the Mini-Grant Program, read Gita’s recent article about the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy.

A ride on the Riverton Bridge with the Veterns Leadership Project.

Community Spotlight—Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy

The Community Spotlight series features the efforts Rivers of Steel’s partner organizations, along with collaborative partnerships, that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the communities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

By Gita Michulka, Contributing Writer

Riders on the Hot Metal Bridge.

Great Allegheny Passage’s People of the Trail

The name “Humans of New York” might already be taken, but “People of the Great Allegheny Passage” has a nice ring to it.

Utilizing the power of a good story, the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Conservancy hopes to highlight the essence of the trail towns along the GAP in a way that draws the attention of locals and tourists alike and shines a light on the living history of our region.

“This beautiful trail, the Great Allegheny Passage, took thirty-five years to build. But moreover, it has been built and maintained by local hands, and it is local entrepreneurs and risk takers who have started businesses in the trail towns along the way—folks who are tied to the land and have a deep appreciation for the history of the landscape through which the GAP runs,” says Bryan Perry, executive director of the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy.

“I want our audiences, especially folks new to the GAP—tourists, out of towners, folks who are really just coming to have a great bicycle adventure—to get to know the people who have built this trail, who have put down a stake in the health of its towns, those who are protecting natural areas, and those who are preserving and interpreting the region’s history. There are so many wonderful stories to tell, and this project will begin to tell just a few of the diverse stories of folks who’ve been committed to the land and its features for such a long time.”

A rider crosses the Whitaker Bridge.

This storytelling project began in 2020 as an outlet for human connection during the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, nearly twenty stories of GAP trail stakeholders have been captured, along with inspiration for a new angle to share the narratives with an even broader audience.

Thanks to funding from Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program, the Laurel Highlands Conservation Landscape, and Westmoreland, Fayette, and Somerset Tourism Grants, as well as the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy itself, these static vignettes will be turned into ninety-second videos, even as the Conservancy is working to capture additional stories.

The GAP, which is open year-round, attracts about a million and a half visits a year, with people traveling from all fifty states and over thirty-five countries to experience the trails. Perry notes that these stories will be shared “as a way to alert tourists and folks coming to bike that this is a place of rich history and beauty and risk taking and deep love among constituents, and that it’s well worth their overnight stay and their appreciation for all that’s been built ahead of them.”

Cyclists on the Port Perry flyover.

The Living History of Western Pennsylvania’s “Industrial Might”

Along its 150-mile path, the GAP follows the paths of decommissioned railroad lines from Cumberland, Maryland continuously up to Pittsburgh.

“The GAP really traces a significant section of our country’s industrial development. The railroads themselves, both the Western Maryland Railway and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad are the corridors on which the GAP is now built,” adds Perry. “And those railroads, in addition to carrying passengers, carried coal and coke into Pittsburgh and steel products back out in other directions. These railroads were commodities that were part of the region’s industrial heritage.”

But Perry is quick to note that the patch towns along these corridors are not a thing of the past, despite the region’s decline after the steel mills closed.

“You’re riding across from the Carrie Furnaces, and of course you’re passing by the Pump House and through the old grounds of the Homestead Steel Works. The region’s industries were dependent upon the rivers and the railroads. So you’re really riding through history in one sense, yet it is living history. People are still earning a living and supporting their families in the Mon and Yough valleys.”

In fact, thanks to the work of local businesses along the trail, tourism had a staggering impact of 121 million dollars in the five counties through which the GAP runs, according to Fourth Economy’s recent economic impact analysis, a study commissioned by the GAP Conservancy in 2020 and published in 2021.

“In Allegheny, Westmoreland, Fayette, and Somerset counties in Pennsylvania and Allegany county in Maryland, 75 million of that 121 is direct tourism spending in a very narrow band right along the Great Allegheny Passage—most of this in trail towns, including Homestead, including McKeesport and West Newton, Connellsville, and then further on out,” explains Perry.

“Entrepreneurs have started up bed and breakfasts, and distilleries and cafes, and inns and ice cream shops, and shuttle services and bike shops. And while these jobs won’t replace the industrial jobs that built those towns, it’s making a significant difference in the health and well-being of those towns along the way. So, you know, prosperity is aided by tourism, and really tourism serves local folks first. The very restaurants and bike shops and cafes that tourists are using, they need to be sustained throughout the year. And if those new businesses are focused first on local residents who frequent them and buy meals and supplies there, then they’re good for those towns, and the tourism dollar is just icing on the cake.”

Perry is hopeful that by sharing the stories of the region’s residents, greater attention will be paid to their labors of love.

“We’re hoping that tourists, as they come through, might say, ‘Hey, I recognize that volunteer or I recognize that business owner from the website—let’s spend a night at their bed and breakfast, let’s hear more of their story.’”

“Truly, the GAP is locally beloved,” continues Perry. “And so local folks are the ones working to, you know, cut grass and take care of fallen trees and take care of public art in those towns and promote walking tours and local bike routes within those towns. So local folks have the best stories. They’ve been at it the longest. And our goal with this project is to really bring the narratives and stories, at least pieces and slices anyway, to the forefront.”

Visit gaptrail.org for more information, and be sure to check out The Great Ride: Landmarks Along the Trail, a new documentary by WQED Pittsburgh featuring twenty-one historic, geologic, and human interest vignettes between Cumberland and Pittsburgh along the Great Allegheny Passage. Head to www.wqed.org/ride for details.

All images courtesy of Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy.

About the Mini-Grant Program

Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program assists heritage-related sites and organizations as well as municipalities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to develop new and innovative programs, partnerships, exhibits, tours, and other initiatives. Funded projects support heritage tourism, enhance preservation efforts, involve the stewardship of natural resources, encourage outdoor recreation, and include collaborative partnerships. Through these efforts, Rivers of Steel seeks to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the industrial and cultural heritage that defines southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one of twelve supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Funding is provided via DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program and the Environmental Stewardship Fund to Rivers of Steel, which administers the Mini-Grant Program. The Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy is one of eight organizations who received Mini-Grant funding through this program in 2022.

Gita Michulka is a Pittsburgh-based marketing and communications consultant with over 15 years of experience promoting our region’s arts, recreation, and nonprofit assets.  

If you’d like to know more about community projects supported by the Mini-Grant Program, read Gita’s recent article about Brownsville’s Perennial Project.

Youth volunteers help plant flowers in the new Hope Park in Brownsville.

Community Spotlight—Brownsville’s Perennial Project

The Community Spotlight series features the efforts Rivers of Steel’s partner organizations, along with collaborative partnerships, that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the communities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

By Gita Michulka, Contributing Writer

Flowers are delivered to Hope Park.

Redefining a Community Through Art and Education

Before its Big Steel era, Pittsburgh was a center for commerce and transportation. However, it wasn’t the region’s only significant thoroughfare for travel and industry. The town of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, a one-square-mile borough located about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh, rivaled Pittsburgh as an important travel hub. Originally a trading post, Brownsville’s location along the Monongahela River gained importance when it became a stop on the historic National Road, the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway. (Learn more about how to experience it locally through the National Road Heritage Corridor.)

The National Road—today known as U.S. Route 40—connected travelers coming from the East to connect with steamboat and rail travel to the West that occurred between 1811–1837. As Brownsville became a hub for steamboat manufacturing, the borough also developed a high-end downtown business corridor that became a destination for shoppers from Pittsburgh and beyond.

Learn more about Brownsville’s place in history in this video.

“If you go back far enough, Brownsville was the place to be!” says Joe Barantovich, with a laugh. “It was once said that Pittsburgh wouldn’t be anything because it was too close to Brownsville.”

Barantovich grew up in the Brownsville area, then left to pursue a teaching and coaching career in Florida. While he was away, an ebb of industrial jobs led to population decline, shuttered businesses, and vacant lots. Brownsville Borough and adjacent Brownsville Township and West Brownsville shrunk in size from 10,000 residents to a little over 2,000.

Returning to a nearly desolate downtown didn’t sit right with Barantovich. Inspired by a group of high school students who initiated a school project to develop an outdoor performance stage in one of the vacant lots, he decided one day that he wanted to plant some flowers around town.

“I said, ‘I only want to plant some flowers,’ because it was something that I knew that I could do myself,” says Barantovich. “I could pay for it myself, and if nobody else cared, at least when I drove through town, I’d feel better.”

But people around town did care. One day of planting three years ago led to the creation of The Perennial Project, a 501(c)3 founded by Barantovich and run by a small team and a whole lot of community buy-in. Each year, The Perennial Project hosts community beautification events, design workshops, and art installations, and the groundswell of volunteer support the projects attract has not waned.

“It’s really, you know, not about me or my organization,” notes Barantovich. “It’s about all the people in town who love their community. The school district and the borough council and the township supervisors and the local business owners, I mean, everybody just kind of jumped in and started doing a piece.”

The organization is supported by more than a dozen partners, including the Greater Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, the Borough of Brownsville, Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, Go Laurel Highlands, Brownsville Area School District, the Brownsville Free Public Library, the Rotary Club of Brownsville, the Brownsville Sons of Italy, and Pennsylvania American Water, EQT, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering.

Joe Barantovich hands off flowers from the delivery truck.

Hope Park

After a grouping of buildings was condemned and removed last year, an unobscured viewpoint of the Monongahela River from downtown opened up a big opportunity for the group.

“At that point we had a view that we’ve never had before. Or at least not, you know, for a couple hundred years. You could stand in town and actually see the other side of the river. It became a nice piece of ground after those buildings were torn down,” says Barantovich.

Recognizing the work The Perennial Project had already been doing, the Fayette County Commissioners offered to fund a mini master plan for the downtown area using tourism dollars, so the group could find out how the community wanted to utilize the new space and make the area attractive to both residents and visitors alike. After a series of community input sessions, the concept of Hope Park was established.

Barantovich was quickly able to secure funding for the project through grants from Giant Food Stores, EQT Corporation, the National Road Heritage Foundation, and Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program, which only added to the momentum the community had already spurred for the development of the lot.

The goal for Hope Park is to create a public greenspace that will serve as a year-round destination. Once completed, the space will offer active and passive recreation, community gathering, and a strengthened connection to businesses, historic tourist sites, and riverfront amenities.

An exciting key feature of the project is an outdoor movie screen, paired with public art banners, a multipurpose sport and recreation surface, a walkway that will lead visitors throughout, and amenities like new benches, trash receptacles, and a fence.

A rendering of what Hope Park may look like after its completion.

The (Virtual) Rebirth of Union Station

Beyond the work The Perennial Project does to breathe new life into Brownsville, Barantovich has also combined his passion for teaching with the ongoing historical preservation around town, to inspire Brownsville’s youth to join in in groundbreaking ways. Utilizing 3-D scans of historic structures, including the iconic Union Station, students are now creating virtual reality programs that allow a viewer to feel as though they are walking through the station in its heyday.

As he discusses the work that is happening through The Perennial Project and around town, Barantovich is quick to note that what is occurring in Brownsville is more than just revitalization.

“I keep saying ‘revitalization’ is the wrong word, because we’re not bringing back to life what used to be here. You know, the coal mines, the steel mills, the steamboats—that’s all part of the past. What’s happening now in Brownsville is a renaissance.”

A group of local merchants and residents will be hosting the first annual Riverfest in August 2022, where you can check out the progress of Hope Park and other downtown beautification projects. To learn more about The Perennial Project visit brownsvilleperennialproject.org.

About the Mini-Grant Program

Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program assists heritage-related sites and organizations as well as municipalities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to develop new and innovative programs, partnerships, exhibits, tours, and other initiatives. Funded projects support heritage tourism, enhance preservation efforts, involve the stewardship of natural resources, encourage outdoor recreation, and include collaborative partnerships. Through these efforts, Rivers of Steel seeks to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the industrial and cultural heritage that defines southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one of twelve supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Funding is provided via DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program and the Environmental Stewardship Fund to Rivers of Steel, which administers the Mini-Grant Program. The Perennial Project is one of eight organizations who received Mini-Grant funding through this program in 2022.

Gita Michulka is a Pittsburgh-based marketing and communications consultant with over 15 years of experience promoting our region’s arts, recreation, and nonprofit assets.  

If you’d like to know more about community projects supported by the Mini-Grant Program, read Gita’s recent article about the Murals of Maxo Vanka.

Photos are courtesy of The Perennial Project.

Christ on the Battlefield, a mural by Maxo Vanka at the St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, PA.

Community Spotlight

The Community Spotlight series features the efforts Rivers of Steel’s partner organizations, along with collaborative partnerships, that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the communities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

By Gita Michulka, Contributing Writer

A photograph of Maxo Vanka, paint brushes in hand.

Maxo Vanka: Preserving the Immigrant Experience

If you drive through any one of the small boroughs and towns that sit immediately adjacent to Pittsburgh along its three rivers, you will pass countless churches that dot the neighborhoods like beacons. These churches sprung up as communities were developed by the immigrants who flocked to the region at the height of the industrial revolution, and many have lasted into the century that has followed as permanent mainstays of the Steel City.

One particular church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, is adorned with over twenty-five larger-than-life murals that depict the immigrant experience fused with themes of faith, war, cultural identity, and social justice. The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka (SPMMMV) hopes their conservation efforts will allow these timeless works of art to last into another century at least.

Maxo Vanka was a Croatian-born artist who arrived in the United States in 1934 after fleeing Europe with his Jewish family as the Second World War was looming. He visited Pittsburgh in 1935 as part of a tour around industrial centers of America with writer Louis Adamic. While in town, he produced a number of works that were then shown publicly. Upon seeing the exhibition, Father Zagar, a priest from St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, felt Vanka should be the one to adorn the interior walls of their house of worship. Zagar later connected with Vanka through Adamic and invited him back to St. Nicholas to consider the commission in early 1937.

The Vanka murals were painted during two periods of time in 1937 and 1941, and include images of Mary, Queen of Croatia; the four Evangelists; the Crucifixion and Pieta; an Immigrant Mother Gives Her Sons for American Industry; and Croatians in America, which depicts a priest asking for a shovel—a symbol of labor—to be blessed by Mary. Vanka called these works his “gift to America” and their themes were prominent and pointed and are still relevant today.

A priest appeals to Mary, seeking a blessing on the shovel—a symbol of labor—one refection of Vanka’s perspective on the immigrant experience in America.

The Conservation

An interest in raising public awareness of the murals’ regional and cultural significance beyond the church community prompted the founding of the SPMMMV in 1991. Their efforts led to a increased community engagement and the start of a successful donation campaign to begin conservation of the murals in 2009.

“A lot of people are really surprised to find out that the murals are water soluble. They aren’t oil—they are something that will come immediately off the walls if you rub too hard,” notes Anna Doering, executive director of the SPMMMV. “They aren’t true fresco because the plaster was dry when they were painted, so you don’t have that embedded pigment.”

The conservation team is led by Rikke Foulke, a fine arts conservator from Foulke Conservation, along with Ana Alba, Patty Buss, Cindy Fiorini, Jessica Keister, Patty Huss West, Cricket Harbek, and Rhonda Wozniak, who have completed twelve of the twenty-five murals to date.

“The really amazing thing,” says Doering, “is that we’ve been working with members of the team since the conservation started, so some members have been with us for now twelve, thirteen years, and are experts on the conservation of these hard-to-conserve murals.”

“The conservators are all accomplished and experts in their own right,” continues Doering. “They do a lot of independent projects and then they come together as a group to do this project,” which, she notes, allows them to accomplish more of the work at a time than if an individual or much smaller team was tasked with the project.

The conservation of the St. Claire and St. Francis murals are supported by a Rivers of Steel Mini-Grant.

Looking Ahead

After the team completed the mural Mary on the Battlefield in 2018, the Society paused to establish a Phase II scope of work for the remaining conservation.

“We don’t typically start conservation if we don’t have the full funding in place to complete the project. We want to make sure that we can keep going once we get started,” says Doering.

In 2021, SPMMMV utilized a Keystone Planning Grant, with support from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the Heinz Endowments, to complete a historic structure report on St. Nicholas and to develop the scope, timeline, and cost for Phase II of conservation and lighting.

With these plans in place, the Society is ready to jump back in.

“To kick off this next phase, we sought funding from Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program to do the conservation of the organ loft murals, St. Francis and St. Clare,” Doering says. “Part of the reason that we asked for the support is because it’s kind of a preview for phase two of conservation, and a way to begin reengaging the public with the murals and the work. The ‘before and after’ photos from conservation are dramatic, and it’s something that people can instantly see the positive impact of the conservation and their financial investments.”

Doering happily notes that even after the necessary lull in tangible progress, folks were still eager to help continue the work. The Mini-Grant funding was matched by the generosity of just a small group of individuals, including Vanka’s granddaughter and her husband. Donors included Julia Bubanovich, Christie Clayton and Michael Burkitt, Marya and John Halderman, Janet Kafka, John A. Martine, Melissa McSwigan and Robert Raczka, Jennifer Novotny Mulrooney, Rita Perstac, Julia Royall, and Barb Spelic.

Paint the Town Maxo

With conservation underway once again, Doering and team are looking forward to bigger and more inclusive ways of engaging the public with Vanka’s timeless murals.

May 19th will kick off a new era for the organization. Their Paint the Town Maxo event on that day will serve not only as a fundraiser, but also as a chance for SPMMMV to elevate their educational programming as they expand on the murals’ universal themes of struggle, sacrifice, faith, and hope.

“One of the most exciting things about the event is that attendees will get a sense of our community engagement and outreach,” says Doering. “We’ll be unveiling new commissions on the issues of injustice, justice, the immigrant experience, and motherhood through Gift to America 2.0. It’s a contemporary take on Vanka’s themes, by local artists.”

Gift to America 2.0 features new work by Christiane Dolores, Max Gonzales, Maggie Negrete, and Cue Perry, and is curated by Corey Carrington. The exhibit will highlight local and national industrial history and the immigrant experience.

As she looks ahead at the work to come, Doering is eager not only for restarting the conservation of the nationally significant Vanka murals, but also for renewing relationships with supporters and sparking new public interest, engagement, and investment in the project.

“The murals really are a one-of-a-kind art treasure,” she says. “Conservation is a tested and compelling opportunity to build community interest, appreciation, and accountability for supporting historic preservation and heritage tourism in Pittsburgh and beyond.”

Learn more about the Maxo Vanka murals, Paint the Town Maxo, and Gift to America 2.0 at vankamurals.org.

About the Mini-Grant Program

Rivers of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program assists heritage-related sites and organizations as well as municipalities within the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to develop new and innovative programs, partnerships, exhibits, tours, and other initiatives. Funded projects support heritage tourism, enhance preservation efforts, involve the stewardship of natural resources, encourage outdoor recreation, and include collaborative partnerships. Through these efforts, Rivers of Steel seeks to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the industrial and cultural heritage that defines southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one of twelve supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Funding is provided via DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program and the Environmental Stewardship Fund to Rivers of Steel, which administers the Mini-Grant Program. The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka is one of eight organizations who received Mini-Grant funding through this program in 2022.

Gita Michulka is a Pittsburgh-based marketing and communications consultant with over 15 years of experience promoting our region’s arts, recreation, and nonprofit assets.  

If you’d like to know more about community projects supported by the Mini-Grant Program, read Gita’s recent article about the Steel Valley Trail.

Photos are courtesy of The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka.