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is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in the United States; it is located at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 24,040 at the 2000 census. It is the second largest city (not including townships and boroughs) in the county, after Pittsburgh.
Settled in 1795 and named in honor of John McKee, its founder, McKeesport remained a village until 1830 when coal mining began in the district. Large deposits of bituminous coal existed.
McKeesport was incorporated as a borough in 1842 and as a city in 1891. Population in 1900, 34,227; in 1910, 42,694; in 1914 (US estimate), 45,965; and in 1920, 45,975. 55,355 people lived in McKeesport in 1940. The decrease in the population is attributable to the general economic malaise which descended upon the region when the steelmaking industry moved elsewhere. The major employer was the National Tube Works, a manufacturer of iron pipes, which once employed 10,000 men. McKeesport is the site of the first G. C. Murphy 5 and 10 cents store.
John McKee, an original settler of Philadelphia and son of David McKee, built a log cabin near the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers, the site of present-day McKeesport. After taking over his father's local river ferry business, he devised a plan for a city to be called McKee's Port. John set out his proposal in the Pittsburgh Gazette, as part of a program under which new residents could purchase plots of land for $20.00 (a lottery was the means to distribute the plots to avoid complaints from new land owners concerning "inferior" locations).
Around the time of the French and Indian Wars, George Washington often came to McKeesport to visit his friend, Queen Alliquippa, a Seneca Indian ruler. After being settled by the McKee family in 1795, McKeesport began to grow in 1830 when coal mining began. The first schoolhouse was built in 1832, with James E. Huey as its schoolmaster (Huey Street in McKeesport is named for him). The city's first steel mill was established in 1851.
The National Tube Company opened in 1872 and became part of U.S. Steel. In the years directly following the opening of the National Tube Company, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, McKeesport was the fastest growing municipality in the nation. The city's population reached a peak of 55,355 in 1940. Families arrived from other parts of the Eastern United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, with most working at the National Tube Company. National Tube closed in the 1980s, along with other United States Steel plants in the Mon Valley.