When Pittsburgh became a borough in April 1794, one of its first acts was to pass an ordinance prohibiting pigs from roaming.
“But inasmuch as the hogs could not read,” wrote historian Leland Baldwin, “they continued to wallow luxuriantly in the rich mire that was everywhere on Pittsburgh’s streets.”
Into the latter half of the 19th century, the swine of Pittsburgh more or less had their run of the place. Pigs wandered through Downtown, clopping along roads and alleys and into private homes and yards. In October 1841, The Morning Chronicle reported on a herd of swine gathering near the Point, with residents in the area having trouble driving pigs from their gardens. A month later, a pig entered a house on Fourth Street, then scrambled out through a parlor window.
“It is true they pervade every street and alley and almost run you down at every corner,” an editorial published in the Daily Pittsburgh Gazette — now the Post-Gazette — inveighed in 1859.
Though fossils of the North American peccary date back some 37 million years, there were no domesticated pigs in the Americas before Columbus. The first pigs, eight Iberian hogs, sailed over on a voyage to Cuba in 1493. But explorer Hernando de Soto is credited as the father of the pork industry, releasing America’s first 13 pigs while surveying Tampa, Fla. in 1539. The idea was that pigs could be hunted on return expeditions, serving as an emergency food source. Three years later, de Soto’s original herd had grown to 700 pigs, enough for colonizers to trade the meat with Indigenous people in the area, kicking off the local pork industry.
Pigs in the Pennsylvania Colony numbered in the thousands by 1660, with a farmer typically owning four or five. The same year, on Manhattan Island, a wall was constructed to guard against pigs running amok, creating the area known as Wall Street.
At the height of the pigs’ romp in Pittsburgh during the 19th century, the city was transitioning from a village outpost into an industrial center. Like most urban areas of the time, residents still raised hogs, allowing them to roam freely even as pastures shrank and city streets developed. For a new urban working class, it was an economic advantage to keep a pig, which could be sold or eaten — “a social safety net made of bacon,” as one contemporary reporter put it — and was said to feed a family for an entire season. (Before refrigeration, the meat was preserved by curing or salting all parts of the pig and storing them in a wooden “pork barrel” — the origin of the political term.)
Unlike other livestock, pigs fit well into urban environments. Highly intelligent animals, they knew where they lived and returned home each night similar to a dog, something Charles Dickens observed in his 1842 American Notes: “At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their way to the last.”
Pigs wandered through the heart of Pittsburgh, scavenging, eating rotting piles of garbage, offal, and even the bodies of dead animals. Municipal trash collection had yet to be established, and hogs — known for their ability to efficiently convert feed into meat — played an unsung role, serving as sanitation workers of sorts.
Pittsburgh’s pigs, of course, had their detractors. Hogs were believed to be dirty, stirring cholera fears. They were also thought to pose danger, having run-ins with passersby, including children. (The same editorial complaining of the hogs’ pervasiveness also described a visitor from Louisville being “run down by a huge porker.”)
In 1816, the ordinance prohibiting hogs from wandering at large was reinforced — this time carrying a one-dollar fine — but the situation remained laissez-faire. According to the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, it wasn’t until the 1840s that complaints about the pigs began to appear regularly in Pittsburgh newspapers. A Daily Gazette editor griped about the stench of a pig pen near the editorial office — one imagines, not far from the Post-Gazette’s or Pittsburgh City Paper’s own offices today.
The tide turned in 1851 when the city made it legal for individuals to round up wayward pigs for a one-dollar bounty. A “Notice to Owners of Hogs” from the mayor’s office appeared in the Daily Morning Post: “The great and increasing number of Hogs running at large has become an intolerable nuisance that must be abated.”
After that, drives to impound pigs occurred regularly, with young boys especially eager to round up pigs for cash. “Death to the Hogs,” a news item from September 1851 read — “The dog days are over and the porkers will be taken to their winter quarters.” Newspapers seemed to adopt a gleeful tone: “At a dollar a head, this pays pretty well,” read one report. In 1859, 39 hogs were reported to be captured in a single morning, and pigs began to disappear from Pittsburgh streets.
Today, regrettably, the hogs of Pittsburgh would not blend as seamlessly into our city life. Dr. Blue Martin, founder and executive director of Pigsburgh Squealers Rescue, warns pigs can easily get bowel obstructions, particularly from eating plastic products and wrappers with food on them. The rescue recently helped with an emergency vet bill for a pig who got into a neighbor’s trash and ingested a battery.
“Pigs are pretty darn smart about not eating dumb things,” Martin said, but modern garbage and its toxicity are a threat.
In the Pittsburgh area, you can still find Ossabaw hogs, direct descendants of Columbus’s Iberico black-footed hogs, at Fallen Aspen Farm in Lawrence County. Owner and farmer Jake Kristophel tells Pittsburgh City Paper that, ultimately, pigs are “woodland creatures” who thrive by foraging, rooting up bugs and plants, and making wallows to wade in. The farm’s hogs are free-roaming, currently munching on acorns, hickory nuts, and fallen apples.
As for the future of raising hogs and consuming pork, Kristophel believes in local sourcing.
“We are anti-factory farming,” he tells City Paper, and Fallen Aspen aims to provide what they feel is an ethical and humane pork option. So-called heritage breeds of pig like Ossabaws are generally costlier and more difficult to find — they won’t be at your local grocery store, Kristophel says — but “it’s way healthier for you, it’s a completely different product, and you’re supporting local farms and communities. So it does make a huge difference.”
But Martin imagines our future with pigs as a peaceful co-existence, where “not every animal we have needs to be a commodity.” While Pittsburgh’s pigs could still be useful for eating plants and managing undergrowth, similar to goats, she believes “there’s no humane way of eating this animal.”
A vegan, Martin prefers not to “preach,” instead focusing on pig rescue work and directing Pittsbughers to the transformative experience of rubbing a pig’s belly. Since opening 10 years ago, Pigsburgh Squealers Rescue has successfully rehomed 275 pigs, while maintaining a menagerie of 35 pigs currently — including a warthog — on its 25-acre farm in Tarentum.
The nonprofit also periodically hosts “Swine and Unwind” yoga events. Visitors are invited to “master [their] downward hog” with the resident pigs — who may be ready to slot back nicely into contemporary life after all.
