Wyatt’s favorite restaurant is Red Robin, but I think it is more about the location than the food because he also gets excited about going to Costco. If we tell him we are going to either place he starts yelling “Bridges, Water, Trains and Castles!” The shopping center, the Waterfront, is located along a river and the area used to be covered with Steel Mills. There are many bridges over the river and lots of train tracks – we almost always see a train or two while we are there. The first time Wyatt started to ask to see the castles I thought he must be referring to church steeples and tried to remember if he would be able to see a church on our drive.
Then one day as we were crossing the bridge he started yelling, “Castles!” and I looked around and saw the structures he was referring to on either side of the bridge.
Last weekend we had dinner and then parked by the “pump house” so the boys could run around. The pump house is one of the few remaining buildings in that area from the days of the steel mills. Wyatt spent some time getting a slightly closer look at his favorite castle (the old Carrie Furnace).
The boys wandered around exploring and took time to stop and check out a grate, just like they do when we go for walks on our street.
As you can imagine there was a lot of excitement when a train crossed the railroad bridge. They stopped and watched and then Ruslan waved.
If you want to see what this area looked like in the past, look at this picture from 1910 – Homestead Steel Works: 1910. In the center of the picture you can see a small water tower. It is the same tower Wyatt is standing in front of here.
After wandering around and reading the plaques about the Homestead Strike of 1892, I went home and read about the strike and the battle. I love that a little bit of history was preserved when they cleaned up the waterfront.
