Our country may be divided politically these days, but back in the 19th century, Americans couldn’t even agree on what time of day it was. Trains throughout the nation operated on a patchwork of time systems local to individual cities. One train might run on Chicago time, while another ran on New York time and a third might run on Columbus, Ohio time. This made any real coordination nearly impossible.
At the June Bridgeville Historical Society meeting, historian Ken Kobus shared the story of how Pittsburgh played a crucial role in bringing those disunited states into single, standardized time system.
Cover Photo: Canadian Pacific / CC BY-NC 2.0