Armstrong Cork Company

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Armstrong Cork Company is an industrial complex at 23rd and Railroad Streets in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, with ten contributing buildings. Its buildings went up in stages from 1901 to 1946, designed by architect Frederick John Osterling in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

Why it's listed

It was listed in the National Register in 2005 under criteria A and C, with state-level significance in industry and architecture. Its period of significance runs from 1901 to 1954, reflecting construction that began at the site in 1901.

Physical character

The buildings are brick on granite foundations, trimmed with terra cotta belt courses, and topped by a 200-foot brick smokestack with a corbelled brick cornice and Romanesque arched windows. The mill, boiler house and warehouse buildings are linked by two steel truss bridges; the garage was added in 1943, the boiler house's east wall rebuilt in 1946, and the smokestack partly repointed in 1964 and reinforced with steel bands in 1967.

Historical context

The company was incorporated in 1895, and by 1940 it was the country's largest importer of cork and largest employer of cork workers. A 1936 flood on St. Patrick's Day closed the Pittsburgh plant, and the company shut it down for good and sold the property in 1974.