Pittsburg

Sister cities

• Wenzhou

History

Originally settled in 1839 as Rancho Los Méganos, the area of almost 10,000 acres was issued to Californios Jose Antonio Mesa and his brother Jose Miguel under a Mexican Land Grant by then Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, one of the final land grants issued prior to the formation of California as a state. In 1849, during the California gold rush, Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson (from New York) bought Rancho Los Méganos for speculation, and laid out a town he called "New York of the Pacific". Steam powered engines moved coal cars down the tracks along present day Railroad Avenue to the waterfront docks that came to be called "Black Diamond Landing." The boom ended in 1885, and the company moved to Washington Territory to work a new claim. This rechristening came at a time when the name of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was more commonly spelled without the "h". In 1926 Johns-Manville opened their first West Coast factory in Pittsburg. In 1930, Columbia Steel became a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. The Pittsburg plant continued to grow until the early 1950s, reaching a peak staff of 5,200 employees when the markets for its products crashed. In 1986, U.S. Steel entered into a joint venture with Pohang Iron and Steel Company of South Korea. Together, they invested $450 million to turn the Pittsburg plant into a modern flat-products mill, renamed USS-POSCO Industries. By 1999, the facility employed 970 workers and shipped over 1.6 million U.S. tons of steel per year to over 175 customers in the Western United States, Mexico, Canada and the Pacific Rim, although POSCO announced its plans to close the facility by the end of 2023. The original town site fronts on the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, reflecting its origins as a deep-water channel river port (As of January 1, 2007,…

Geography

Pittsburg shares a border with the unincorporated community of Bay Point to the west, the city of Concord to the southwest and Antioch to the east. Suisun Bay is directly north of the city and connects San Francisco Bay to the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Pittsburg experiences a hot summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa) bordering on the Semi-arid climate because of the Mt. Diablo rain shadow in East Contra Costa County.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  14,712
• Anna's Hummingbird

  Calypte anna (R.Lesson, 1829) · Aves
  13,978
• California/Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

  Aphelocoma californica (Vigors, 1839) · Aves
  13,582
• Black Phoebe

  Sayornis nigricans (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  12,286
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  12,168
• Oak Titmouse

  Baeolophus inornatus (Gambel, 1845) · Aves
  11,654
• Lesser Goldfinch

  Spinus psaltria (Say, 1822) · Aves
  10,945
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  10,433

Largest nearby schools

• Pittsburg Senior High
  High · Pittsburg · 3,494 students · 23.3:1 ratio
• Clayton Valley Charter High
  High · Concord · 2,381 students · 25.3:1 ratio
• Antioch High
  High · Antioch · 1,960 students · 23.1:1 ratio
• Deer Valley High
  High · Antioch · 1,851 students · 22.3:1 ratio
• Northgate High
  High · Walnut Creek · 1,507 students · 24.3:1 ratio
• Mt. Diablo High
  High · Concord · 1,498 students · 19:1 ratio
• Ygnacio Valley High
  High · Concord · 1,172 students · 19.2:1 ratio
• Concord High
  High · Concord · 1,167 students · 19.1:1 ratio