City History:

Pittsburg, one of the important cities of southeastern Kansas, is located in Crawford County, 11 miles southeast of Girard, the judicial seat. It is 3 miles from the Missouri line and 134 miles from Kansas City, at the junction of four railway systems the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Missouri Pacific, the Kansas City Southern and the St. Louis & San Francisco. The main shops of the Kansas City Southern are located here and give employment to 1,600 men. It is in the mineral and oil district and the zinc smelters give employment to 1,200. Coal is extensively mined and shipped. Other important industries are the foundries and machine shops, cornice works, flour and planning mills, tent and awning factory, boiler works, paving and building brick plant, sewer pipe works, factories for the manufacture of gloves, mittens, garments and cigars, stone quarries and packing houses. There are 4 banks, 4 newspapers (the Headlight, the Kansan, the Labor Herald and the Volkesfreund), and a monthly fraternal paper (the Cyclone). The city has electric lights, fire and police departments, sewer system, waterworks, paved streets, electric street railway, a $60,000 opera house and fine school and church buildings. This is the seat of the manual training branch of the state normal school, a Catholic academy, and a German Lutheran school. There are telegraph and express offices and an international money order post office with eight rural routes. This is one of the points designated by the government for a postal savings bank. The population in 1910 was 14,755.