Allegheny Arsenal powder magazine (photo by Rebekah Wudarczyk).
While studying for my master’s degree in landscape architecture at Chatham University in 2010, we were required to write an Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS). These reports are stored in a publicly accessible database. I chose Arsenal Park.
This site has a rich history, and I was curious to understand how it got its name and became a park. In March 2024, I converted my research into a PowerPoint presentation for the Lawrenceville Historical Society’s monthly meeting.
Arsenal Park is located in Lawrenceville between two other sites, Arsenal Middle School on Butler Street and the Allegheny Health Department on Penn Avenue. The 11-acre park is also bounded by 39th and 40th streets and is owned by the City of Pittsburgh. According to 20th-century historian Joseph A. Borkowski, who served as president of the Arsenal Board of Trade in Lawrenceville, the land to start the arsenal was purchased in 1814 by the United States government from William B. Foster. The original tract of land was 30 acres and was purchased for $12,000. The government hired U.S. Capitol architect Bejamin Latrobe to design the buildings for the arsenal and the construction took from approximately 1814 through the 1820s.
On September 17, 1862, an explosion at the arsenal claimed the lives of 78 people. After the explosion and the end of the Civil War, the government slowly diminished the making of ammunition on the site, and by 1868 there was no manufacturing of munitions done there. To commemorate Benjamin Latrobe and the arsenal’s history, in June 1967 a State Historical Marker was placed on 40th street near one of the entrances to the park.
Allegheny Arsenal State Historical Marker No. 257, dedicated June 1967 (photo by Rebekah Wudarczyk).
In Allan Becer’s A Doughboy’s Tale and More Lawrenceville Stories, a section of the book states that the park was established in 1907 by the Lawrenceville Board of Trade. They worked with Congressman James Francis Burke on securing 23 acres of land as a park. The dedication was held on July 4, 1907. Not all the land became a park; eventually, part of the land was given to the Board of Education in the 1930s for Arsenal High School, which is now a middle school. Five acres close to Penn Avenue were sectioned off to become a Marine Hospital, which opened in 1910; it is now the Allegheny County Health Department.
In 1934, Ralph Griswold designed a formal park plan. According to his University of Pittsburgh Archives papers, he began his career in 1916 after graduating from Cornell University. After serving in World War I, he spent time at various landscape-architecture firms, moved to Pittsburgh in 1927, and established his own firm, GWSM, Inc. He worked on many Pittsburgh landscape projects, and between 1934 and 1945 he was superintendent of the Bureau of Parks for the City of Pittsburgh. For his 1934 plan, he designed three baseball/softball fields, a tennis court, and an amphitheater near the pond. (The pond’s location is speculated to be the location of the original pond that was used to fight the flames of the explosion in 1862.) Griswold made changes to the park again in 1942. Then in 1959 and 1967, the city made minor alterations by adding volleyball and basketball courts. In 1993, City of Pittsburgh landscape architect Thomas Olivio made some rehabilitation plans to the park, adding a playground; and at some point a deck hockey court was installed.
In the years since the park’s establishment, all the buildings were demolished except for the powder magazine. The magazine has been used mostly for storage by the city, and eventually bathrooms were added. Two plaques adorn the exterior of the building commemorating the arsenal and the explosion, together with a plaque in remembrance of those who served in the wars, which the arsenal helped supply with ammunition.
Arsenal Park is currently under rehabilitation again. Pashek+MTR, a well-known local landscape-architecture firm located on East Ohio Street, is working on the design. The first of many phases of the park’s rehabilitation is complete, with a new playground and other site upgrades. The charm and character of the park has never been lost, and its history will remain a true statement and testimony to Lawrenceville’s resilience.
