2026 Pittsburgh
NFL Draft
Forgive the throngs attending this month’s NFL Draft, when their favorite team’s next big star is announced, if they dance atop the graves of sports venues past.
The North Shore will host its biggest-ever event from April 23-25, but it has been building toward this moment in the sporting spotlight for nearly 150 years, since Exposition Park began hosting baseball games. The ghost of that diamond — which hosted the baseball Burghers, who were renamed the Alleghenies and then the Pirates — is joined by that of Three Rivers Stadium, where so much of Pittsburgh’s sports glory took place.
The shore’s transformation from one stadium to two dominated late-1990s politics in the region, as taxpayers were asked to foot the bill, said no, and ended up largely paying anyway. Transformation from one stadium to two wiped out the last of the neighborhood’s residences and led to the current carnival of strolling families, bobbing boats, zipping bikes — and geese.
As the draft puts the North Shore through another round of changes, Pittsburgh’s Public Source dug into archives at the Heinz History Center and found the bones of much more than stadiums.
Before the stadium-dominated North Shore was part of Pittsburgh, it was the southern flank of Allegheny City, incorporated in 1840 when it had a population of around 10,000 and annexed 67 years later.
In those decades before the merger, there was Exposition Park in Allegheny City. The first Exposition Park, along the shores of the Allegheny River and up against the former Union Bridge, was built for a mix of entertainment, from circuses to baseball to horse races. Frequent flooding mired the outfields through all three renditions of the park. House rules stipulated that a ball hit into the water was an automatic single.
By 1900, Allegheny’s population had surged to nearly 130,000, making it the third-largest city in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh at the time had around 322,000 residents — a little more than its current total — and Philadelphia boasted around 1.3 million.
Allegheny’s population was dominated by the ethnicities that were then immigrating to the U.S., including Scottish, Irish, German, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian and Greek households. Many found employment in the nearby steel, textile, glass and cotton mills.
While rail served the area, during the frequent floods of the early 1900s, some got around by boat.
Allegheny ceased to exist as a city in 1907, when it was forcibly annexed by Pittsburgh. It’s been called “one of the most controversial annexations in U.S. history,” achieved by a 1906 vote that was skewed heavily in favor of “yes.”
Along the pre-flood-controlled shores near what is now Tequila Cowboy, a mix of fire and water damage, along with fears that the city’s red light district was creeping ever closer, led the Pirates to move to higher ground. The new Forbes Field opened in Oakland in 1909, home to the Pirates and the University of Pittsburgh’s football Panthers. When the Pittsburgh Steelers were formed in 1933, the new franchise started at Forbes Field before transitioning to Pitt Stadium beginning in 1958.
Exposition Park continued to host other events until its demolition in 1915. The North Shore remained a hub for industry.
The Pirates moved to Forbes Field in 1909. Eventually, plans emerged for the team to return from Oakland to the North Shore. By the mid-60s, most of the buildings on the North Shore had been razed in preparation for Three Rivers Stadium. Throughout its three decades as the city’s venue for the Pirates and Steelers, parking lots would dominate its perimeter.
Three Rivers was never a great park for baseball, and talk of supplementing or replacing it started in earnest in 1991, when Mayor Sophie Masloff’s administration proposed a 44,000-seat home for the Pirates which she tentatively called Clemente Field. The idea was widely mocked.
But it resurfaced under Mayor Tom Murphy, who worked with Allegheny County commissioners Mike Dawida and Bob Cranmer to craft plans for a regional sales tax add-on (defeated by voters) and then a cobbled-together funding plan. Down went Three Rivers Stadium, replaced by PNC Park and what’s now Acrisure Field. Both opened in 2001.
Riverlife, formed in 1999, led the rebirth of the shore as a promenade with greenspace and features including water steps — and sometimes too much water.
Since its rebirth, the North Shore has hosted high school and college football games, NFL and MLB playoff contests (though never a Super Bowl or World Series) and countless concerts. The draft will be the biggest single gathering it’s seen. By the time it’s matched or exceeded, the neighborhood could be on its next round of stadiums.
Stephanie Strasburg is a photojournalist with Pittsburgh’s Public Source who can be reached at stephanie@publicsource.org or on Instagram @stephaniestrasburg.
Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org.
Rich Lord is the managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
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