A Trip to the River Market

Friday we headed to the River Market to walk around and meet Patrick & Leah for lunch. We decided to hit up the River Market Antique Store. I had no idea how large was or how 2 hours can fly by and still not hit every floor! Finding old treasures is my new hobby. There is just something cool about picking up a piece of history and bringing it home. I could have spend a ton on furniture but since we are still in the rental house I didn't want to add anymore to our storage unit aka basement/garage. But both Vince and I managed to find some cool stuff. My favorite find of the day was a super old hand painted bowling pin. I just couldn't pass it up. Vince found a cool old V magnet that we could leave with out. And even Ben got a few things...A "naughty stool and I came across an old snuff jar that was made in Pittsburgh, PA. I thought it would be something cool to get him from the city of his birth. Upon further inspection I noticed that it was stamped Pittsburg PA. I ask Vince where the "h" was on the stamp and he said that someone told him that Pittsburgh didn't always have a "h" but he couldn't remember the story. So I of course had to research it as soon as we got home.

Here is what I found out...

Pittsburgh is the most misspelled city in America, according to a recent study by ePodunk. The most common misspelling? You guessed it - Pittsburgh spelled without its 'h.'
Pittsburgh, named by General John Forbes in honor of Sir William Pitt, has officially ended in an 'h' since its founding in 1758 with the exception of the time period from 1890-1911. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison established the t10-man U.S. Board on Geographic Names to help restore order to the naming of cities, towns, rivers, lakes, mountains and other places throughout the U.S. At the time, some states actually had as many as five different towns with the same name which, understandably, caused confusion.

One of the first codes established by the new Board to help restore order to U.S. place names was that the final 'h' should be dropped from the names of all cities and towns ending in 'burgh.' The proud citizens of Pittsburgh, considering their town an obvious historical exception to this ruling, refused to give in to the Board's ruling and mounted a campaign to keep the traditional spelling. Twenty years later, in 1911, the Board finally relented and restored the 'h' to Pittsburgh. To this day people remain confused.


So now the snuff jar is even cooler and older that I originally thought. It had to be made between 1890-1911! It sure doesn't look like it is over 100 years old but it sure is!

After our treasure hunting we met Patrick & Leah for lunch at Hickocks in the River market. It was great to see them! After lunch it was HOT out so we decided to head back to the car and go home for nap time.