cover image Allegheny River

Allegheny River

Mike Sajna, Jim Schafer, Jim Shafer. Pennsylvania State University Press, $67.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-271-00836-3

``Everything good and bad about the country can be found along the Allegheny River,'' writes Pittsburgh Magazine columnist Sajna. Following the river's winding course through small cottage communities, suburbs, fisheries and post-industrial backwaters of western Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh where the Allegheny joins the Monongahela to form the Ohio River, this delightful amble blends history, reportage and travel. George Washington nearly drowned in the Allegheny's frigid waters. Indians burned to death their British captives along the river's banks during the French and Indian Wars. Andrew Carnegie opened a foundry on the Allegheny in the 1860s. Environmentalist Rachel Carson, infamous oilman John Wilkes Booth, muckraker Ida Tarbell, real-life legends like Johnny Appleseed and Mike Fink, and Seneca Indian artists figure in a narrative bedecked with 165 color photographs and 27 b & w. (Nov.)