The Herron Hill Pumping Station has played a significant role providing water to much of Pittsburgh for more than a century.
In 1896, City Council set aside 100 thousand dollars from the sale of bonds for a new Herron Hill Pumping Station lower on the property, closer to Centre Avenue and out of harm’s way from the landslides of the previous pumping station. Work proceeded at a rapid pace and the building was completed by the end of the year, with the date commemorated in the frieze above the front entrance. With the new Herron Hill Pumping Station in place, water could be pumped to the Herron Hill Reservoir or to the Bedford Basins and then distributed by supply mains to tanks in residential areas in the East End. This became known as the Herron Hill Service.
The Herron Hill Pumping Station is an important historical landmark because it is an example of the Classical Revival or Neoclassical style successfully adapted to the specific program of a late nineteenth-century water works. Important from a design standpoint was the desire to provide large quantities of natural light and ventilation into the building along with the ability for the public to confidently view clean modern infrastructure at work inside. The Herron Hill Pumping Station is also significant as a skillfully-designed, surviving example of the work of late nineteenth-century Pittsburgh architect William Smith Fraser. The Herron Hill Pumping Station is significant for its role in dependably providing public water to Pittsburgh’s notoriously hilly neighborhoods for over a century and for allowing rapid urban development of the city’s East End in the early twentieth-century.
Finally, the Herron Hill Pumping Station is significant for a number of reasons as a visual landmark in North Oakland, a neighborhood that is undergoing a considerable amount of new development. Top among them is it is important aesthetically for the historic composition of its site. Fraser placed his Classical Revival building appropriately upon a pedestal. The grassy knoll from which the building rises not only adds to its prominence, but would have offered sweeping views of the East End and the much of the Herron Hill Service area when first constructed.
The nomination of the Herron Hill Pumping was supported by a donation made in honor of Kathleen Gallagher.
