Brownsville Commercial Historic District

Redstone Old Fort — or Redstone Fort or (for a short time when built) Fort Burd — on the Nemacolin Trail, was the name of the French and Indian War-era wooden fort built in 1759 by Pennsylvania militia colonel James Burd to guard the ancient Indian trail's river ford on a mound overlooking the eastern shore of the Monongahela River (colloquially, just "the Mon") in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania near, or (more likely) on the banks of Dunlap's Creek at the confluence. The site is unlikely to be the same as an earlier fort the French document as Hangard dated to 1754 and which was confusedly, likely located on the nearby stream called Redstone Creek. Red sandstones predominate the deposited rock column of the entire region.

Dunlap's Creek Bridge was the first arch bridge in the United States built of cast iron. It was designed by Richard Delafield and built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Constructed from 1836 to 1839 on the National Road in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, it remains in use today. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark (1978). It is located in the Brownsville Commercial Historic District and supports Market Street, the local main thoroughfare. Due to the steep sides of the Monongahela River valley, there is only room for two short streets parallel to the river's shore and graded mild enough to be comfortable to walk before the terrain rises too steeply for business traffic.

The Flatiron Building in Brownsville, Pennsylvania is located in the Brownsville Commercial Historic District. The building is owned and was restored by the Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation.

Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, first settled in 1785 as the site of a trading post a few years after the defeat of the Iroquois enabled a resumption of westward migration after the Revolutionary War. The trading post soon became a tavern and inn and was receiving emigrants heading west, as it was located above the cut bank overlooking the first ford that could be reached to those descending from the Allegheny Mountains. Brownsville is located 40 miles (64 km) south of Pittsburgh along the east bank of the Monongahela River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough of Brownsville has a total area of 1.1 square miles (2.8 km2), of which 0.97 square miles (2.5 km2) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.3 km2), or 10.47%, is water—most of which is the Fayette County half of the Monongahela River between the community and the flatter lands of West Brownsville on the opposite shore in Washington County. As a community, the town is the central population center for a number of outlying hamlets geographically tied to the town for the same reasons they were founded nearby: western Pennsylvania has far more hills and steep slopes than flats or gentle sloping terrains suitable for settlement. This keeps Brownsville at the nexus of the transportation infrastructure which grew up during its history. While no longer a passenger depot, Brownsville and West Brownsville share an important railway bridge, creating a balloon loop that allows the turning of complete coal trains. The limited-access toll road PA Route 43 connects the town to strategic points and southern Pittsburgh at Clairton. PA Route 88, hugging the river, connects to towns up and down the Monongahela Valley. The historic National Road (now U.S. Route 40) reached East Saint Louis, Illinois, and connected the town to the immigrants arriving in the port of Baltimore traveling west on the Cumberland Turnpike and the National Road. From its founding, well into the 19th century, as the first reachable population center west of the Alleghenies barrier range on the Mississippi watershed, the borough quickly grew into an industrial center, market town, transportation hub, outfitting center, and riverboat-building powerhouse. As a trading post, it was a gateway destination for emigrants heading west to the Ohio Country and the new United States' Northwest Territory, and later for travelers heading westwards on the various Emigrant Trails both to the Near West and later the Far West. As an outfitting center, the borough provided the markets for the small-scale industries in the surrounding counties, as well as for Maryland shipping goods over the pass by mule train via the Cumberland Narrows toll route. Brownsville became a major center for building steamboats through the 19th century, producing 3,000 boats by 1888. The borough developed in the late 19th century as a railroad yard and coking center, with other industries related to the rise of steel in the Pittsburgh area. It reached a peak of population of more than 8,000 in 1940. Postwar development took place in suburbs, as was typical of the time. The restructuring of the railroad and steel industries caused a severe loss of jobs and population in Brownsville, beginning in the 1970s. The borough had a population of 2,331 as of the 2010 census.

Bowman's Castle, also known as Nemacolin Castle, was built in present-day Brownsville, Pennsylvania, at the western terminus of the Nemacolin's Trail on the east bank of the Monongahela river. It was built around the original trading post, which was built near the site of Fort Burd, the latter built by British colonists during the French and Indian War. Construction on the castle, including addition of a crenellated tower, continued through the Victorian era, when it was considered an engineering marvel.

The Brownsville Bridge, also known as the Intercounty Bridge and the West Brownsville Bridge (most often heard in the high counties east of the river), is a truss bridge that carries vehicular traffic across the Monongahela River between Brownsville, Pennsylvania and West Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Since the opening of the Lane Bane Bridge and highway project to carry much of the intercounty through traffic away from the main streets of downtown Brownsville in the early 1960s, another commonly heard name is Old Brownsville Bridge for the four high level viaduct. The West Brownsville-Brownsville Bridge was completed in 1914 to replace an 1831 wooden structure that was ill-suited for the vehicular traffic that the National Road was beginning to carry, as motorized vehicle traffic began replacing animal powered transportation technologies. The famous federal route has crossed the river at this point since its inception, with ferry service in the early nineteenth century. In 1960, the Lane Bane Bridge was constructed just downstream and U.S. Route 40 was moved to the new high-level structure. Currently, the route serves local traffic and is meant to tie together the interconnected towns on each bank. It is designated as a historic bridge by the Washington County History & Landmarks Foundation.

The Lane Bane Bridge is an American truss bridge that carries vehicular traffic across the Monongahela River between Brownsville, Pennsylvania and West Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

Brownsville Northside Historic District is a national historic district located adjacent to the Brownsville Commercial Historic District at Brownsville, Pennsylvania. The district includes 188 contributing buildings and 2 contributing sites in a neighborhood of Brownsville. Most of the contributing buildings are residential, with some commercial buildings and nine churches. The house styles are reflective of a number of popular 19th- and early-20th-century architectural styles including Colonial Revival, Bungalow / American Craftsman, and Greek Revival. The oldest building is Brashear's Tavern (c. 1797), and there are five buildings that date between 1815 and 1840. The contributing sites are cemeteries associated with two of the churches, including Christ Church, the burial site of Brownsville namesake Thomas Brown. Located in the district and separately listed are the St. Peter's Church and Bowman's Castle.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

Christ Church is a historic Anglican church in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Completed in 1857, the church is a contributing property to the Brownsville Northside Historic District.

West Brownsville is a former important transportation nexus and a present-day borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States and part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 972 at the 2020 census. Culturally, by postal route, and socially, the community is connected to cross-river sister-city Brownsville, for the two were long joined by the Amerindian trail known as Nemacolin's Path that became a wagon road after the American Revolution, but West Brownsville is a separate municipality. Brownsville was the first point where the descent from the Appalachians could safely reach the river down the generally steep banks of the Monongahela River. Between Brownsville and West Brownsville was a shallow stretch, usable as a river ford astride a major Emigrant Trail to the various attractive regions in the Northwest Territory, the first National Road, the Cumberland Pike (Now U.S. Route 40).

The Historic Church of St. Peter is a Roman Catholic church in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in the Diocese of Greensburg. The Historic Church of St. Peter also has a partner parish in Grindstone, Pennsylvania named St. Cecilia's Roman Catholic Church, which was built in 1931.

Blainsburg is an unincorporated outlier community of West Brownsville, PA; by tradition a hamlet sized neighborhood with more actual housing acreage than West Brownsville proper in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States. Named after a U.S. Senator, James G. Blaine . Blainsburg is part of the California Area School District . West Brownsville residence students attend Brownsville Area School District in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The bedroom community is situated on the bluff above and slightly North-northwest of West Brownsville on the river bottom below. Blainsburg is located alongside but above the climb PA Route 88 makes from the W. Brownsville river flats (Locally known as Blainsburg Hill Road) which bends right entering a shelf where it connects with the northwest streets of Blainsburg before taking a second ascent (now becoming California Road) towards California. The parent and child communities are on the inside curve of a great meander in the Monongahela River in Southwestern Pennsylvania creating a degraded cut bank turned ramp and terrace on the opposite shore where Brownsville is situated. Blainsburg is often misspelled with an "E" in it, to match the spelling of its namesake, James G. Blaine. Blainsburg as of official records was founded in 1906 and is still spelled without the "E".