Construction project unearths Civil War era cannonballs in Pittsburgh

A construction crew in Pittsburgh recently unearthed a piece of history.

The Franjo Construction crew was turning soil for a new condominium development on 39th Street, between the Allegheny River and Butler Street in Lawrenceville, on July 2 when they found a piece of buried history, Pittsburgh Public Safety officials said Thursday.

Workers discovered a cache of Civil War era cannonballs.

The cannonballs were live and the excavator operator who discovered them called the Pittsburgh Police Bomb Squad upon discovering the artifacts.

This wasn’t the first time the excavator made such a discovery, Public Safety officials said.

In March 2017, 715 cannonballs were unearthed nearby at the former site of the Allegheny Arsenal. Several cannonballs from that find are housed at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District, though the rest were destroyed because of safety concerns.

The Allegheny Arsenal was a key Union manufacturing center during the Civil War. In a Tweet, the City of Pittsburgh linked this recent discovery with the Allegheny Arsenal, which exploded in 1862, causing the largest civilian disaster of the Civil War.

In both of these recent discoveries, the construction work was being done for Milhaus, an Indianapolis-based real estate developer.

The cannonballs are the property of the Army. Because they are live — and therefore sensitive to conditions like heat and impact — the Pittsburgh Police Bomb Squad is coordinating with the Army, officials said.

Officials have not yet tallied how many cannonballs were discovered.