Before the great industrial revolution at the turn of the 19th century, the region encompassing the boroughs of East Pittsburgh and North Braddock was a lush wilderness inhabited by Indians. Traders, woodsmen, hunters and trappers soon discovered that the area had abundant opportunities for trapping and hunting and established tiny settlements in the region. The first non-Indian settler of the Turtle Creek Valley was believed to be a Scottish trader by the name of John Frazier who built a cabin near the mouth of Turtle Creek in the 1740’s at what is now the location of the site of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in North Braddock. This area was just a portion of the hundreds of acres of land he received from an individual known as Queen Aliquippa of the Delaware Indians. Following the heels of a young surveyor named George Washington (who later became the first United States’ president) farmers began to settle the land.
One of the most historically significant events in early American history occurred in North Braddock at the battle between troops led by General Edward Braddock and the French. General Braddock planned to defeat the French along the frontier by inspiring colonists to join him and resist French encroachment. The most pivotal part of his strategy was capturing Fort Duquesne from the French, and then heading north to Niagara. General Braddock led his army toward Fort Duquesne along the Nemacolin Trail, which was improved in 1755 for the purpose of carrying infantry and supply wagons (from that point forward it took on the name Braddock’s Road). General Braddock’s military effort was unsuccessful and the French defeated his army after a surprise attack along the Monongahela River at the current location of North Braddock Borough. Braddock himself was mortally wounded in the battle and died during the trip back to Cumberland, Maryland. The effect of Braddock’s defeat was catastrophic to the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia as word of the attack spread through the frontier settlements (Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, 1977).
North Braddock would again play role in the nation’s growing pains in the late 1700’s during the "Whiskey Rebellion" or "Whiskey Insurrection". David Bradford, an attorney and businessman who was also the Deputy Attorney General took over as the leader of a group of individuals who opposed any tariffs on the sale of whiskey. Bradford, along with his group, requested that the local militias gather on Aug 1, 1794 on Braddock’s Field (the location where General Edward Braddock was mortally wounded on his expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne) to begin a military excursion. This request saw five to seven thousand troops gather at Braddock’s field to start their journey. Approximately three months later, this insurrection ended as George Washington engaged troops to stop this effort and leaders of the rebellion were either put on trial or escaped. The Pennsylvania Railroad brought industrialization to Turtle Creek Valley when the main rail line was built in the mid 1800’s and ever since, East Pittsburgh and North Braddock have been an integral part of the Turtle Creek Valley, Following the opening.
The Quarter Sessions Court of Allegheny County established North Braddock as a borough on April 26, 1897 combining the areas known as Wolf Town (First Ward), Braddock’s Field (Second Ward), and Shady Park Village (Third Ward). North Braddock was primarily dominated by farmland owned until the 1800’s when coal became a top export for the region (the first coal mine opened in 1835 in what would later become North Braddock).
North Braddock would get its big boost from the railroad industry in the mid 1800’s and with the expansion of the railroad industry came a need for additional rails. At the site of the first settler’s cabin in this region almost 100 years earlier, Andrew Carnegie secured an option for approximately 100 acres and broke ground on the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in 1873. The steel plant used the Bessemer method to make steel rails – where a blast of air was forced through molten pig iron to burn out any impurities and change it into steel. A little over two years after ground was broken, the first rails were being produced.
The Edgar Thomson Steel Works has undergone four complete changes in technology – original Bessemer converters; open-hearth steel furnaces in 1913; basic oxygen process steel making in 1972; and a continuous slab caster in 1992. This steel plant once employed approximately 20,000 men and women (in boom times) and today has about 1,000 employees. In 1994, the Edgar Thomson Plant was given the ASM Historical Landmarks Designation that was established to identify permanently the many sites and events that have played a prominent part in the discovery, development and growth of metals and metalworking.
The Braddock’s Field area was home to the Wallace Mansion (constructed by Judge Wallace) and during the 1830’s this house was used as the Edgeworth Ladies Seminary. This boarding school was the first of its kind west of the Alleghenies and the tuition was $3 per week. As the success of the steel industry grew, many retail and service providers followed suit in North Braddock. By the early 1900’s, grocers, bakeries, hardware stores, barbershops, and many other retail establishments could be found in the downtown area of the borough. Today, many of these establishments have been closed as retail has shifted from local service areas to larger malls and big box retailers.