PITTSBURG  , a

city of Crawford county, Kansas, U.S.A., about 130 M . S. of Kansas City . Pop . (188o), 624; (1890), .6697; (1900) 10,112, of whom 86o were foreign-born; 0.910 census), 14,755 . It is situated at the intersection of four great railway systems—the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, the St Louis & San Francisco, the Kansas City Southern (which maintains shops here), and the Missouri Pacific, and is served by inter-urban electric railways . The city is the seat of the State Manual Training Normal School (1903) and of the Pittsburg Business College . Pittsburg is situated near the lead and zinc region of south-east Kansas and south-west Missouri, is in the midst of a large and rich bituminous coalfield, and lies near natural gas and oil fields . Among the manufactures are zinc spelter—there are large smelters here—clay products (chiefly vitrified brick, sewer pipe and tile; the clay being obtained from a great underlying bed of shale), blasting powder, packing-house products and planing-mill products . The total value of the city's factory products in 1905 was $1,824,929 . Pittsburg was settled about 1879, was chartered as a city in 188o, and became a city of the first class in 1908 .