Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building - Wilmerding, PA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building (1889-1890, rebuilt 1896), designed by Frederick J. Osterling.

Wilmerding has its own version of a medieval Scottish castle, a majestic five-story edifice that overlooks the Westinghouse Valley community that George Westinghouse established for his Air Brake Corp.

The Castle, as it is known, was designed in 1886 by Frederick Osterling to house the executive offices of the Westinghouse Air Brake Corp.

The Castle, with 55,000 square feet of office and dining areas and 57 rooms, is constructed of Indiana limestone. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks designation of historic Allegheny County Buildings.

For over a century, the Castle served as the headquarters of a corporation that fabricated railroad and industrial pneumatic devices, including the air brakes that were invented and patented by Westinghouse.

The interior has the original marble floors and corridors, brass fixtures and oak woodwork throughout. Several of the conference rooms are paneled and have marble and carved-stone walk-in fireplaces. The textured ceiling of the executive dining room is painted with symbolic works of art.

The hand-carved oak doors of the executive dining room, which stand 12 feet high, are done in a linen-fold design, carved to resemble the convolutions of a folded napkin. And the four-face clock tower — which was added to the main building when the Castle was rebuilt in 1897 following a disastrous fire — chimes on the half-hour.

But to the residents of Wilmerding, a small borough nestled in the Westinghouse Valley in the eastern environs of Allegheny County, the Castle is more than a historic landmark. It is a reminder of WABCO, a company that Westinghouse relocated in Wilmerding in 1989, and that, along with its successor, Wabtec, has been the borough’s primary employer.

Westinghouse, a man known for his benevolent management style, plotted and then established Wilmerding as one of the nation’s first planned communities. He built substantial homes for his workers, who at first emigrated primarily from Wales and Ireland, and then from southern and eastern Europe. He also built a school to educate their youngsters, provided for their health care and established a pension plan.

County / Borough / Parish: Allegheny Year listed: 1987 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Person, Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1875-1899, 1900-1924, 1925-1949 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Social Current function: Education Season start / Season finish: From: 01/01/2008 To: 12/31/2008 Hours of operation: From: 9:00 AM To: 5:00 PM Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Street address: Not listed Privately owned?: Not Listed Secondary Website 1: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/30/2009 NorStar visited it

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