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is a city in Crawford County, in Southeast Kansas, United States. It lies 90 miles west of Springfield, Missouri, and 137 miles northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is the most populous city in Crawford County and in Southeastern Kansas. The population was 19,243 at the 2000 census.
It was founded on May 20, 1876 and named after and in honor of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Franklin Playter is credited with being the city's founder, establishing a government from its earlier incarnation as a coal mining camp in the 1870s.
Pittsburg is the home to Pittsburg State University, founded as a normal training institution. It has always had a strong manual and industrial arts program and has trained many of the area's public and private school teachers.
A relic of the city's coal mining days was the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company, founded in 1885, and one of the oldest continuously running coal companies in the United States (even though its headquarters moved several years ago to Denver, Colorado after the Kansas mines closed). In September 2007, Chevron which owned the company merged it with its Molycorp Inc. coal mining division to form Chevron Mining thus ending the Pittsburg corporate name. Midway referred to a coal camp in eastern Crawford County, Kansas that was "midway" between Baxter Springs, Kansas and Fort Scott, Kansas. Kenneth A. Spencer whose father was among the founders of the company was to play an important role in Kansas and Missouri philanthropy.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.5 square miles (32.4 km²), of which, 12.4 square miles (32.2 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²) of it (0.48%) is water.