Category: History || By

To understand why Allegheny County remains a crazy, patchwork quilt of municipalities that can barely support themselves, it helps to realize that when the county was created in 1788, it was comprised of only seven townships: Moon, St. Clair, Mifflin, Elizabeth, Versailles, Plum and Pitt.

Most of McKeesport was contained within Versailles, which (according to the minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania) was to include all land east of the "Youghiogany" river and south of Turtle Creek.

Port Vue, Liberty and other points south were included in Elizabeth Township, which contained "all that part of the Forks between Monongahela and Youghiogany rivers, which lies within the county of Allegany."

Across the Mon, present-day Duquesne, Clairton, Dravosburg and other communities were part of Mifflin, which stretched south from "the mouth of Street's run," while Braddock, East Pittsburgh and other communities were part of Pitt Township.

. . .

Pennsylvania townships originally had very limited governmental authority. If you and your neighbors wanted police protection, paved streets and other improvements, you needed to charter a borough or city.

So in 1794, residents of Pittsburgh carved a borough from Pitt Township, and one year later, McKeesport was founded. (It was incorporated as a borough on Sept. 6, 1842.)*

The process continued through the 19th century. Across the river in Mifflin Township, Duquesne, Homestead and other communities were settled, urbanized, and incorporated.

As those communities grew, the formerly rural areas nearby were annexed. For most of the 19th century, in fact, it was very easy for an urban area to nibble off parts of the surrounding townships --- which implies that the state's founding fathers wanted these townships eventually to go away completely.

McKeesport thus kept chomping away at Versailles, while Clairton, Duquesne, Homestead and Munhall kept gnawing away at Mifflin.

. . .

There were two problems with this system. First, it didn't really pay for a township to encourage any development. Take Versailles Township. The Potter-McCune Co. and G.C. Murphy Co. bought property there in the 1930s when the land was rural and cheap. As soon as they built their warehouses --- increasing the taxable value of their property --- McKeesport annexed them.

Ditto for many city neighborhoods. As soon as a developer completed a housing plan in Versailles Township, the city would circulate an annexation petition among the residents. Usually, they signed. (Believe it or not, there was a time when being part of McKeesport had prestige.)

Second, if you were a township supervisor in Versailles, Mifflin or elsewhere, you wanted to protect "your phony-baloney job," to quote Mel Brooks.

After all, if Duquesne, Homestead, Munhall and Pittsburgh eventually annexed all of Mifflin Township, and McKeesport annexed Versailles Township, you wouldn't be able to hire your cronies. (Their officials would be hiring their cronies instead.)

But it was --- and still is --- much harder to annex a borough. The borough council has to put the consolidation to a vote, and it has to be approved by a majority of the voters.

So in 1942, Mifflin Township became West Mifflin Borough, while Versailles Township was transformed into White Oak Borough in 1948, thus preserving both from the greedy, grasping claws of their neighbors. Similar situations all over Allegheny County locked us into the ridiculous system we have now.

. . .

The fight to establish White Oak Borough was extremely nasty, by the way. The Versailles Township solicitor arrived at the courthouse at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 3, 1946 to file a petition to turn the community into a borough. McKeesport's solicitor was literally the next person through the door with an annexation petition --- but he was a few minutes too late.

The city, the township and the tiny borough of Eden Park spent the next two years in court spitting, clawing and hissing at one another before they declared a truce. (Eden Park packed up for good in 1952, merging with the city. It was the last municipal merger in Allegheny County history, representing a rare outbreak of common sense.)

In the meantime, the state legislature gave townships most (if not all) of the same rights and powers as boroughs and cities, which makes it pointless to have three different municipal classifications.

In retrospect, we would have been better off if more populous municipalities had continued chewing off pieces of townships until only a handful of boroughs and cities remained.

* Correction, Not Perfection --- See comments. This story gave an incorrect date for the chartering of the Borough of McKeesport.