Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Project Completion: 2005

CDC served as the Cultural Resource consultant for the Master Plan of Point State Park, a National Historic Landmark. The cultural resources at Point State Park are of national significance and have been deeply impacted by urban development, highway construction, and the creation of the Park’s landscape. What remains of Fort Pitt, Fort Duquesne, and other archaeological resources at the Point possess a high level of historical importance not only to Pittsburgh, but to the Commonwealth and the Nation. Pittsburgh’s famous Point was first a significant place to Native Americans and later to the French, English, and Virginians as well as to the thousands of immigrants who moved to the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Point also was significant to the region’s industrial powers including the Pennsylvania Railroad and finally to the landscape designers of Point State Park.  In order to evaluate the archaeological integrity of Fort Pitt, all of these occupations were considered to interpret the findings and to plan for the recovery of archaeological sites that remained buried beneath the existing ground surface of this significant landmark.