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Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania*

Mission

To preserve and present regional history.

Programs and Services

  • The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (DBA Heinz History Center) is Pennsylvania’s largest history museum and a proud affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. Devoted to the history and heritage of Western Pennsylvania, our family of museums includes the Heinz History Center, Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, Fort Pitt Museum, and Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village. The History Center is also home to the Thomas & Katherine Detre Library & Archives.
  • Our mission is to engage and inspire large and diverse audiences through programs that enable links to the past, understanding in the present, and guidance for the future by preserving regional history and presenting the American experience with a Western Pennsylvania connection.
  • This work is accomplished in partnership with others through archaeology, archives, artifact collections, broadcast and electronic media, civic engagement, conservation, educational programs, exhibitions, events, library, museums, public outreach, performance, preservation, publications, products, research, technical assistance, and virtual programs.
  • A National Historic Landmark, Meadowcroft features a massive rock overhang – the Rockshelter – used 19,000 years ago for shelter by the region’s first inhabitants. Take a tour of this internationally-renowned archeological treasure and learn more about the lives of Western Pennsylvania’s prehistoric hunters and gatherers.
  • At Meadowcroft’s interpretive villages, you can step back in time to encounter rural life over the past 500 years. Explore a wigwam and test your aim with a spear thrower at the 16th-century Eastern Woodland Indian Village, experience an 18th-century log cabin and open-sided trading post, and watch a blacksmith forge red-hot iron or take a lesson in a one-room school house at the site’s 19th-century Historic Village.

Primary Revenue Sources

Fundraising; Earned Income via admissions, facility rental, museum, shop and café.

Primary Fundraising Event

Annual History Makers Award Dinner

2023 Financials

Federal Tax ID 25-0965391
Revenue $10,211,252
Expenses $10,714,646
Net Assets $56,141,063

Contact

Name: Tonia Rose
Title: Executive Vice President
Email: tmrose@heinzhistorycenter.org
Website: heinzhistorycenter.org
Phone: 724-587-3412
Address: 401 Meadowcroft Rd.
Avella, PA 15312

This website contains an organizational snapshot, as well as links and contact information, for each of our participating charities. We have also included the tax identification number for each charity so Donors wishing to review more detailed financial and governance information may access the Form 990 for that charity via irs.gov.