Point of View Park, Pittsburgh

Located on the western edge of the Grand View Scenic Byway Park at the intersection of Grandview Ave. and Sweetbriar St. on Pittsburgh’s historic Mount Washington, Point of View Park provides a marvelous view of the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers. The point of land between the rivers was the location of the French Fort Duquesne and the British Fort Pitt. The riverine point at which the two rivers meet is the start of the Ohio River and the officially designated eastern terminus of the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. Meriwether Lewis took to the river in late August 1803 in the so-called keelboat or barge here, he had men under his command, and he began keeping his journal. Lewis also had with him Seaman, his Newfoundland dog, purchased in Pittsburgh for $20.

From the vantage point of Point of View Park, when visitors shift their gaze to the left, they view the river as it flows north past Brunot Island, inaccessible to the public today, where Capt. Lewis stopped just after leaving Pittsburgh. Lewis allowed a local man there, Blaise Cenas, to handle his newfangled air rifle. After a shot Cenas fired off grazed the face of a woman standing nearby and caused a bloody wound, Lewis assumed control of the weapon and resumed his voyage downstream. Lewis wrote, “by examination we found the wound by no means mortal or even dangerous.”

A panel in the park discusses Lewis’s activities in the area. Nearby is a bronze sculpture of the seated figures of George Washington conferring with the Seneca Indian leader Guyasuta in October 1770. Sculptor James A. West titled it “Point of View,” which lent its name to the park when it was dedicated in October 2006.