Some ten years ago I contributed to a book on "Historic Towns,"published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, of New York and London, a briefhistorical sketch of Pittsburgh. The approach of the one hundred andfiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh, and the elaboratecelebrations planned in connection therewith, led to many requests thatI would reprint the sketch in its own covers as a souvenir of theoccasion. Finding it quite inadequate for permanent preservation in itsoriginal form, I have, after much research and painstaking labor,rewritten the entire work, adding many new materials, and making of itwhat I believe to be a complete, though a short, history of our city.The story has developed itself into three natural divisions: historical,industrial, and intellectual, and the record will show that under eitherone of these titles Pittsburgh is a notable, and under all of them, animperial, city.