Pittsburg Township, Mitchell County, Kansas

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Pittsburg Township is a civil township in Mitchell County, Kansas, United States. Its area includes the point at the intersection of Latitude 39.35 and Longitude -98.43333.

The township's name is derived from Willam E. Pitt, one of the founders of the central town of the township, Tipton. At the town's founding, it too was named Pittsburg.[1]

The first white settlers came to this Pittsburg in 1871. We know from official records that Mr. W. A. Pitt lived here in 1872, one-half mile east of the present town site, on a farm he owned. Mr. Pitt's house served as the local post office. Hence it was hardly surprising that the scattered settlers in and around this territory began to call it Pitt's-burg.

But at the request of the United States Postal Service, the town was renamed to avoid confusion with the larger town of Pittsburg, Kansas in Crawford County. Because some early settlers of the area had also resided for a time in the industrial city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it is often popularly thought the township name derives from that city, but such is not the case.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Brief History of the St. Boniface Parish, Michael P. Dreiling, 1937