Library Road

From Pittsburgh Streets
Library Road
Neighborhood Overbrook
Origin of name Community of Library

Library Road is so named because it leads to the community of Library at the southern edge of Allegheny County. The community was originally named Loafer's Hollow, but was renamed Library in honor of the first library in this area, established by John Moore in 1833.[1] The village of Library appears in the 1850 map of Allegheny County by E. H. Heastings;[2] the road leading to it is labeled "Library Ave" in the 1876 Hopkins atlas.[3]

Bob Regan includes "Library" in his "Streets of Pittsburgh" crossword puzzle, clued as "A depository built to contain books and other materials for reading and study."[4] Unfortunately this is just a dictionary definition of the word library and gives no information about the origin of the street name.

References

  1. "The history of South Park Township." Township of South Park. http://www.southparktwp.com/township_history.php. [view source]south-park-history
  2. E. H. Heastings. Map of the County of Allegheny, Pennsylvania. 1850. Historic Pittsburgh DARMAP0090. [view source]heastings
  3. Atlas of the Cities of Pittsburgh, Allegheny, and the Adjoining Boroughs, p. 44. G. M. Hopkins & Co., Philadelphia, 1876. http://historicpittsburgh.org/maps-hopkins/1876-atlas-pittsburgh-allegheny; included in the 1872 layer at Pittsburgh Historic Maps (https://esriurl.com/pittsburgh). [view source]hopkins-1876
  4. Bob Regan. The Names of Pittsburgh: How the city, neighborhoods, streets, parks and more got their names, pp. 183–186. The Local History Company, Pittsburgh, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9770429-7-5. [view source]regan