The Allegheny River: Watershed of the Nation (Keystone Books) - Hardcover

Schafer, Jim; Sajna, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0271008369 ISBN 13: 9780271008363

Publisher: Penn State University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Of all the rivers in the country, few can claim as long, diverse, and colorful a history as the Allegheny. Jim Schafer and Mike Sajna take us on a trip from its mouth to its headwaters, charting the Allegheny River’s history from its creation during the Ice Age to the present. Using historical records and accounts, interviews, personal experiences, and over 150 contemporary and historical photographs, Schafer and Sajna vividly portray the mighty Allegheny.

The Allegheny played a key role in the French and Indian War, and after the Revolution it was the main thoroughfare for immigrants heading west to settle America from Ohio to the Northwest Territory, thus earning Pittsburgh the title "Gateway to West." Part of the river's story includes its role in the Industrial Revolution, for it once bore the environmental scars of unrestricted industrialization. Today it has rebounded to become one of the best fisheries in the state and home to a diverse collection of flora and fauna, including several endangered species. It is also now one of the most heavily used rivers for recreation in the country.

Throughout the text, Sajna weaves vignettes with the famous figures and interesting character who have encountered the river, from George Washington, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and Andrew Carnegie, to Seneca Chief Cornplanter, John Wilkes Booth, "Johnny Appleseed," and Rachel Carson. He also interviews contemporary people who live, work, or take inspiration from the river, including a woodcarver, a riverboat captain, and vacationers and naturalists. Through words and photographs, Schafer and Sajna depict the ever-changing face of the river.

About this title

About the Author

Jim Schafer is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine, Women's Day and Scientific American. His first book of photography, Lehigh Reflections, was published in 1988.

Mike Sajna is the outdoors columnist for Pittsburgh Magazine and author of Pennsylvania Trout and Salmon Fishing Guide (1988) and Buck Fever: The Deer Hunting Tradition in Pennsylvania (1991).

Reviews

``Everything good and bad about the country can be found along the Allegheny River,'' writes Pittsburgh Magazine columnist Sajna. Following the river's winding course through small cottage communities, suburbs, fisheries and post-industrial backwaters of western Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh where the Allegheny joins the Monongahela to form the Ohio River, this delightful amble blends history, reportage and travel. George Washington nearly drowned in the Allegheny's frigid waters. Indians burned to death their British captives along the river's banks during the French and Indian Wars. Andrew Carnegie opened a foundry on the Allegheny in the 1860s. Environmentalist Rachel Carson, infamous oilman John Wilkes Booth, muckraker Ida Tarbell, real-life legends like Johnny Appleseed and Mike Fink, and Seneca Indian artists figure in a narrative bedecked with 165 color photographs and 27 b & w.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271008369
• ISBN 13: 9780271008363
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320