Union National Bank

It took less than a year to construct this elegant skyscraper, from digging its foundation to opening day. Yet that breakneck speed of construction did not prevent the skilled workers from demonstrating sublime craftsmanship, as any visitor to the stunning two-story banking room, now a men’s clothing store, can attest.

This building and its neighbor, Commonwealth Trust, were erected simultaneously by different crews working for the same company, numbering some 100 men in total on both sites. As they raced to see which site’s steel framework would “top out” first, the men on the Union National site fell behind their rivals. Working through the night, they riveted together steel beams into a column eight stories tall to reach the building’s maximum height and braced it with a temporary web of ropes to declare themselves the victors.

The stone and terracotta walls are held up by a thousand tons of steel for each building. All of it had to be hauled to the job site by teams of horses in an age before tractor trailers.

John McCune

Originally a leather merchant in Market Square, John McCune bought cowhides from farmers to tan them and make his wares. The bank he later founded featured a leather belt in its logo. McCune became a respected financier and served as chairman of the city finance committee.

His son, John, and grandson, Charles, each took a turn as president of the bank. As a young man, Charles McCune struck it extremely rich as oil speculator in Oklahoma. When he later sold his oil lands to Texaco, McCune became a director of the corporation and its largest single shareholder.

MacClure & Spahr

Like Alden & Harlow, another leading architectural partnership of the time, Colbert MacClure and Albert Spahr came here from Boston, where laws limited the height of buildings and squelched the spread of skyscrapers.

MacClure first worked on the 1893 Horne’s department store before inviting his colleague from the firm of Peabody & Stearns to join him in launching a practice in Pittsburgh. Their first commission was Keystone Bank two doors down. The duo designed a few other downtown towers, but this was their biggest.