Father Pitt’s Pittsburgh Encyclopedia

Thomas H. Scott

Thomas H. Scott in 1913

Thomas H. Scott in 1913

Thomas H. Scott had a long and successful career that included one prominent skyscraper and two unusually handsome municipal water-pumping stations.

Top of the Machesney Building

Top of the Machesney Building, now the Benedum-Trees Building

From The Book of Prominent Pennsylvanians, 1913, which gave us his photograph above:

Thomas H. Scott was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1865, the son of John H. and Ann Scott. He was educated in the public schools of Washington county. When only 22 years old, young Scott left Washington county to seek a bigger field of endeavor. He came to Pittsburgh and opened an office as an architect, after studying that profession for a due period of time. His success was immediate, and by hard work and originality of ideas, Mr. Scott secured a handsome business. Since establishing himself in Pittsburgh, Mr. Scott has designed the Machesney building, a large downtown office structure; the Wilkinsburg High School, the Standard Steel Car Company’s office building at Lindora [Lyndora], and has been the architect for the Denny estate for 20 years.

Allegheny Preparatory School

Allegheny Preparatory School

Here is a short list of some of Scott’s works in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area:

Pettit House, 1327 West North Avenue, Manchester, 1891
Allegheny Preparatory School, Lincoln and Galveston Avenues, Allegheny West, 1892
Kinder Building, Western and Galveston Avenues, Allegheny West, 1904
Machesney Building (Benedum-Trees Building), Fourth Avenue, 1905
House at 5816 Walnut Street, Shadyside, 1909
Nora McMullen Mellon House, 5811 Howe Street, Shadyside, 1911
Mission Street Pumping Station, South Side Slopes, 1912
Wilkinsburg High School, Wallace Avenue at Center Street, before 1913
Garden Theater, 22 West North Avenue, North Side, 1914

For more by Scott, see the Great Big List of Buildings and Architects, which is kept up to date with Father Pitt’s latest research.

Garden Theater

Father Pitt and His World

Father Pitt. Pictures of Pittsburgh and the world around it.

Flora Pittsburghensis. Wild flowers of Pitts­burgh and Western Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh Cemeteries. The art and architecture of death.

The Mirrour of the World, or thymage of the same. Random pictures from here and there.

Monochrome World. All the colors of black and white.

Two-Color World. The world is an old postcard.

Imaginary Color. If the world were in color, it might look like this.


Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Publishing Empire

Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine. The heart of the empire.

An Eclectic Library. Dr. Boli’s collection of interesting and unusual books on line.

The Historical Spectator. History as seen by the people who lived through it.

The Argosy of Pure Delight. The delight of discovering something new to read.


Privacy Policy

This site has no privacy policy because it is too stupid to know who you are. It does not collect any personal information at all. It does not set cookies, and it does not embed content that would track you. Most of the pictures are hosted at Wikimedia Commons, which has a detailed privacy policy here. Comments are handled by Cusdis, a privacy-friendly commenting service.


A project of Father Pitt. All pictures, unless otherwise attributed, are by Father Pitt and released under a Creative Commons CC0 public-domain donation.

To leave a correction or a comment, go to this page at the main Father Pitt site.