North Hill Historic District - New Castle, Pennsylvania - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

New Castle’s population nearly tripled in a decade – from 11,000 in 1890 to 30,000 by 1900. The rapid growth was brought about by three things: The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, local tin deposits, and George Greer. The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 placed a heavy tariff on imported tin. In 1893, George Greer raised enough capital to open the New Castle Steel and Tin Plate Company, a four-mill plant, making use of the local deposits of tin. The mill was so profitable it attracted imitators as fast as it could expand. In 1897 the Shenango Mill was erected by the Shenango Valley Steel Company. Before the mill was completed, it was bought-out by the American Tin Plate Company. In 1899, the Pennsylvania Engineering Works built a plant manufacturing steel plant components. By 1917, there were over 60 mills in the city manufacturing a variety of iron, steel, tin and glass products. At the beginning of the depression in 1930, New Castle’s population was just shy of 50,000.

During the depression the tin mills began closing down. The city slipped with the rest of the country, recovering slowly after World War II as the vacant tin mills were occupied by newer companies in need of the city’s industrial infrastructure – its water, its railroads and its labor. The city’s population peaked at just over 50,000. But the North Hill never recovered. The wealthy residents that hadn’t been forced to leave during the Depression fled to the outlying townships with the city’s misguided attempts at ‘urban renewal,’ including housing projects built right at the foot of the North Hill. Over a few decades, New Castle’s population dropped by almost half – a loss of almost 25,000 residents. The huge mansions were left empty, neglected and devalued.

The gangs found it easy to squeeze-out and dominate the local drug trade, allegedly using their monopoly to exponentially increase the cost of crack (without a patent!). Sales goals for most of the dealers were $20,000 per day. This all came to light in 2006, when the Pennsylvania Attorney General led a series of high-profile busts throughout the city. Despite this, the city is not dangerous or even scary. It feels safe to walk around (but, then again, it always has); kids ride their bicycles on the streets.

The beautiful old New Castle high school and 15 surrounding homes and mansions, on the crest of the North Hill, were demolished and replaced with a blase post-modern building and asphalt parking lot, destroying much of the historical integrity of the district. The Scottish Rite Cathedral still towers above the city. Some of the mansions on the lower North Hill have been restored, some torn down. The 15,000-square-foot (restored) George Johnson Mansion is on the market for $1.4 million. The (unrestored) Raney-Jameson Castle was recently appraised by Lawrence County at $74,000.