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FOURTH AVENUE, located in the center of downtown Pittsburgh, was part of the town plan created by George Woods and Thomas Vickroy in 1784. In the early nineteenth century, Fourth Avenue was occupied by small manufacturers and merchants, many of whom lived above their shops. The disastrous fire of 1845 destroyed twenty blocks of the city, about 1,000 buildings, including most of those on Fourth Avenue west of Smithfield Street. However, property owners were quick to rebuild their businesses, and were joined by many attorneys who wished to be near the new Courthouse that was built on Grant Street in 1841. Continued development in the city pushed new construction eastward and as the downtown became increasingly commercial, residents began to move to outlying areas.
In the late nineteenth century, Pittsburgh was transformed as it became the nation's industrial center. Oil wells in northwestern Pennsylvania and steel mills in Pittsburgh and the Monongahela Valley were sources of tremendous wealth, and much of that money flowed into the banks and financial institutions that were being constructed on Fourth Avenue. By 1908, the amount of money held in Pittsburgh's national banks was second only to that in New York. In that year, the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange and twenty banks and trust companies were located in and around Fourth Avenue.
Mergers and expansions have resulted in the relocation of many of the institutions once found on Fourth Avenue; however, Dollar Savings Bank and Union Nation Bank are still located here. Many of the other buildings have been adapted for new uses, but Fourth Avenue still retains its dense urban fabric and monumental scale.
