Carson Street is named after a sea captain
Our street has carried the same name for more than 200 years. It comes from a man who probably never set foot on it.
Stand outside our door at 1205 East Carson Street and you are standing on one of the oldest named streets in Pittsburgh. The name has been here since 1811, and the story behind it is a good one.
A doctor draws a town
In 1811 a physician named Nathaniel Bedford laid out a new town on the flat land south of the Monongahela River. Bedford had come from Birmingham, England, and is remembered as the first doctor to practice in Pittsburgh. He named his town Birmingham after the city he came from. The English Birmingham was a famous iron town, and people hoped this one would become the Birmingham of America.
The land belonged to the Ormsby family. Bedford had married into it, so when it came time to name the streets, he kept things personal.
Streets named for family, and one friend
Many of the streets around us still carry the names Bedford chose for relatives. Jane Street is named for his youngest sister. Sidney Street is named for his sister-in-law, Sidney Ormsby. Bingham Street honors Martha Bingham of Birmingham, England. Sarah and Mary Streets come from the same family circle.
The main street was the exception. Bedford named it Carson after a sea captain he knew who lived in Philadelphia. That is nearly all the old histories say about him: a captain, a friend of the doctor, a city 300 miles away. His first name did not even make it into the record.
On the map by 1815
Carson Street shows up on a map of Pittsburgh and its surroundings drawn in 1815, only four years after Bedford planned the town. It has been the main street of the South Side ever since.
So the next time you walk in for a coffee, you can tell whoever you are with that the street is named after a sailor who never had to find parking on it.