Share your Point State Park fountain stories and snaps as it turns 50

Happy 50^th birthday, Point State Park fountain! We Pittsburgh Union Progress journalists think you look great as you reach middle age.

Officials in charge of the historic landmark want everyone to celebrate this milestone event at a birthday party this Friday from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. An educator will be on the upper fountain plaza so you can learn more.

On Wednesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pittsburgh Mayor Gainey proclaimed Aug. 28 Point State Park Fountain Day at the state and city level, respectively, as state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn spoke at the fountain with Gainey and other officials. The press event included commemorative cookies from Eat’n Park.

Many media will report on the fountain’s and park’s history, which commemorates and preserves the strategic and historic heritage of the area during the French and Indian War from 1754-63, and, of course, it involved George Washington. So, we’ll give you just a little bit here, with some links so you can get your questions ready.

But we welcome your help, too. If you have a great fountain story or photograph, send it to us at contact@unionprogress.com, and we’ll add the best to this story.

Here’s a good one, from Dawn Patton Mangine of Moon:

My husband and I were engaged at the confluence of the three rivers, at the Point State Park fountain, in December of 2000. And we took a number of wedding pictures there on the day of the ceremony on Sept. 1, 2001.

We were standing at the fountain taking pictures when someone out on a boat yelled, “Hey, can I get in your pictures?” We called back, “Sure, if you can get over here!” He jumped in the river and swam over to take a picture with the wedding party.

It’s still one of our favorite stories from our special day!

State and city officials dedicated Point State Park and the fountain on Aug. 30, 1974, and officially conveyed it to the Bureau of State Parks, Department of Environmental Resources. The state invested $17 million to complete the park, exclusive of highway connections. The fountain itself cost less than $1 million, according to the Summer 1985 Carnegie Magazine.

Contrary to assumption, water in the fountain of Point State Park then, it reported, came not from our three rivers but from an “unknown” and unnamed fourth river of Pittsburgh. This fountain source “is a subterranean river about 54 feet below the surface at the Point. The river cavity is wider than the Golden Triangle.” That’s actually the aquifer — that is, groundwater that flows beneath Downtown.

Today three pumps cycle through 1.2 million gallons of water every hour into the 152-foot-wide fountain and the three smaller ones that represent Pittsburgh’s famed Three Rivers.

When Damon Blankenship worked for the DCNR as a maintenance repairman, he got to turn on the fountain in the morning, something he demonstrated to various visitors including some “furries” from Anthrocon in 2018. Here’s one of the photos he emailed us:

He writes:

I  started at Point State Park in the summer of 2012 as a semiskilled laborer, working under Matt Greene, park manager. (Great guy.) At that time the park and fountain were under reconstruction, and we were so excited to see the progress transpire. [Then Greene] promoted me to Maintenance Repairman 1, then Maintenance Repairman 2 — now I can start and maintain the fountain!!!

I was so proud to work for an agency like the DCNR. I met dozens of people from all over the world and always entertained those who were interested in the fountain’s functions and history. Will Smith, Kenny G, Mayor [Bill] Peduto, all came around and got a tutorial on the infamous fountain.

Sadly, in 2017 new management had me steered in a different direction. I opted to leave and finish my commonwealth career at the 171st Air National Guard. I retired (sort of) in 2023. I have wonderful memories of Point State Park and enjoyed every day that I came to work. I currently live in Ross and I am a part-time employee with Ross Township Public Works. 

Riverlife Pittsburgh, a nonprofit founded in 1999, came to the fountain’s rescue just over a decade ago when it needed major repairs and led its restoration. That finished in 2013 and now features a plaza that is ADA-accessible, an overflow waterfall and reflecting pool, a seating ring and new benches, restroom facilities, and updated dynamic LED lighting.

That historic rain and flooding the region experienced in April left the Point and fountain under water, but crews cleaned it up and got it turned on in early May as they’d planned, just in time its 50th birthday celebration, WPXI-TV reported last month.

If you can’t make it Friday, no need to fret. The park is open every day of the year, sunrise to sunset. Day-use areas close at dusk, according to the DCNR website.

DCNR works in collaboration with the Heinz History Center and the Fort Pitt Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution to interpret the history of the Forks of the Ohio. For more information, visit Point State Park’s Fort Pitt Museum. It’s open daily from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

It’s been reported that more than 200,000 people annually visit the park and the fountain. That includes some of us and many of you! So, let’s get going and tell those fountain stories.

I, Helen Fallon, have two stories:

First one: I was a college senior studying journalism at then Point Park College just as the fountain opened. The legendary Vin LaBarbera sent my upper-level reporting class to the fountain in September and said, “Don’t come back without a story!” So we did. About 15 of us descended on one poor man who was charged with ensuring the new fountain operated properly. I wish I had kept a copy of that story. I earned a great grade on it despite Mr. LaBarbera using his red pen and marking it up liberally as he always did.

Second one: Fast forward to 2013, and I was a professor at Point Park University. I took several classes as well as a high school journalism apprenticeship I taught for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit to the Point because the big duck was moored there. The 40-foot-high yellow duck, created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, marked the start of the Festival of Firsts. It stayed there for about a month, and. I swear, I never saw so many happy people, including many coming Downtown for the first time ever to see it. The students experienced something, too, most journalists always don’t: people willing to be interviewed!

On one of those trips I took a photo for a group of women who traveled from Indiana to see it, most visiting Pittsburgh for the first time. They told us they just love ducks. One member of their group couldn’t make it, so they had a huge photo of her head on a stick, and one woman held it as I snapped away.

Here’s another story, from the North Hills’ Glenn Miller:

I’ve always been fascinated by the fountain. I actually shot a Super 8 mm film of its grand unveiling at the park. These two photographs, captured during the day and at night, are among those I have taken over the years.