Pittsburgh, PA: 1904-1954 Lost/Wabash Terminal

(Satellite, the roads have changed a lot since WWII. See the topo map below.)

This past year, the Facebook algorithm has been suggesting a lot of trash such as Taylor Swift fan groups, but this suggestion was a gem. (I now spend more time on Facebook blocking suggested groups than I want to think about.) I knew Wabash had a presence in downtown Pittsburgh because of the Wabash Bridge. And now I know what their depot looked like and where it was.

Taylor Rosen posted
The Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal was a railroad station located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Constructed in 1903 and opened on April 13, 1904, the 11 floor Beaux-Arts domed 197 foot tall terminal was designed by Theodore Carl Link and cost George Jay Gould $800,000 ($26.1 million in 2022 dollars). Floors 1 through 3 contained ticketing, passenger waiting areas and some retail with floors 4 and above serving hundreds of offices of Gould's Wabash Railway Corporation. The terminal lasted only four years as a Wabash Railroad terminal when the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway entered receivership on May 29, 1908. The Wabash would go on to lose both this railway and end affiliation with the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. The terminal continued to service passenger traffic until October 31, 1931, but survived beyond that as an office building and freight-only facility. Upon its repurposing, the building also lost its 11th-floor cupola. The adjacent freight warehouse was closed after two successive fires on March 6, and March 22, 1946 destroyed most of the infrastructure. The station was announced for demolition on July 5, 1953 to make way for the Gateway Center complex. Demolition started on October 5, 1953 and was completed in early 1954.
George Wanner: You can see the old fireplace at Schellhaas Funeral Home (which used to be my restaurant!)
Trumane Brown: https://www.brooklineconnection.com/.../WabashBridge.html

I included the tunnel as well as the bridge that the Wabash built to access to the city.

1906 Carnegie Quad @ 62,500

This view shows the trainshed between the bridge and the terminal building. Another photo confirms that the long building to the left of the trainshed was their freight terminal.

BrooklineConnection, 1 of many photos of the terminal and bridge