Fort Duquesne Marker, Pittsburgh, Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

The Fort Duquesne Marker is in Point State Park in Pittsburgh, close to the spot where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio. It commemorates the French fort that stood at the Point in the 1750s, the first chapter in the story of the city's founding.

The story behind it

The French built Fort Duquesne at the Point in 1754, during the struggle with Britain that became the French and Indian War. The site controlled the meeting of the rivers and the routes into the Ohio country. In 1758 a British army under General John Forbes advanced on the fort, and the French burned it and withdrew. The British then built the much larger Fort Pitt nearby, and the name Pittsburgh comes from it.

The Point you see today is a much later creation. After the Second World War, civic leaders organised through the Allegheny Conference set out to clear the run-down land at the tip of downtown and turn it into a park. One famous proposal, from the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was for a huge civic centre, but it was rejected. The city chose a park instead, with its big fountain, and it took shape over the following decades into the 1970s.

What to look for

• Read the wording on the marker itself, which tells you that the French stronghold once stood on this ground, not inside a museum.
• Walk to the tip of the park and look at the fountain, which sits right where the two rivers join to make the Ohio.
• Find the Fort Pitt Blockhouse in the park, a small surviving building from the later British fort.
• Look back from the water at the downtown skyline and the bridges, and notice how the Point is a natural gateway to the city.

Tips for your visit

• Give yourself 20 to 40 minutes if you only want the marker, the fountain and the river views, and longer if you add the museum or the trails.
• Morning and late afternoon are the pleasantest times for walking and for photos of the rivers and skyline.
• The marker is outdoors in a public park, so there is no inside to visit. Check current opening hours for the Fort Pitt Museum and whether the fountain is running.
• Downtown Pittsburgh is a short walk away, so the Point works well as the first or last stop of a day on foot.

See it on a quest

The Point is one stop on Pittsburgh Historic Downtown, a self-guided walk through the historic centre. You reach the marker on foot as part of a longer route, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. There is no guide and no group to join, and you can start whenever you like. It is a paid quest, and one ticket covers the whole group.