History & local legend
The Senator John Heinz History Center occupies a former ice warehouse in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. The building’s history includes a devastating fire on the same site: on February 9, 1898, an ammonia explosion and collapsing walls added to the destruction of the earlier cold-storage warehouse. The ice company rebuilt that year, creating the building that later became the museum.
A ghost story printed in the North Hills Genealogists’ October 2003 newsletter focused on the museum’s fifth floor, then used for offices. It described employees and security guards hearing footsteps and seeing shadowy men wearing tall hats.
Sources
- North Hills Genealogists, October 2003 newsletter, printed page 28, the fifth-floor museum legend
- Heinz History Center Library and Archives, ice company location, original fire and rebuilding
- Wheeling Register, contemporary report of the explosion and collapse, February 11, 1898
- National Park Service, museum address
- OpenStreetMap, verified museum footprint
