Inside Old Thunder Brewing on Blawnox’s main street, framed photographs of the construction from a few years ago line the walls and give customers a glimpse of its transformation from an old post office to what’s now the hottest spot to hang out in the borough.
To the left of the entrance, the owners have kept the former postmaster’s office mostly intact. A nearby window has a view of a recently completed mural depicting Blawnox. And then, through the back windows, there’s a view of the site of two storied former steel mills — Blaw Collapsible Steel Centering Company and Knox Pressed and Welded Steel Company, which later merged into Blaw-Knox and served as the inspiration for the borough’s name.
Rob Dillman, co-owner and co-founder of the brewery, looks out the window as he shows Pittsburgh City Paper around the place.
“It’s kind of what our image is, you know? It’s like a little bit of old and a little bit of new,” Dillman says. “And so you’re standing here in this newer brewery space, and you can see the original businesses that used to be here.”
About 10 miles northeast of downtown Pittsburgh, Blawnox has transformed from a steel town to a quiet suburb with a vibrant, growing main street. Next year, the borough will pull out all the stops to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
The borough, closely associated with neighboring O’Hara Township, curves into a bend of the Allegheny River and fits within Fox Chapel School District. For decades after the Blaw-Knox company merger in 1917, steel manufacturing defined the borough, but in the late ’60s, the company began to change owners and continued a steep decline in its prominence.
“[Blawnox] was certainly affected by losing a Fortune 500 company. Any small municipality would be, and Blawnox is no exception,” says local historian Tom Powers. “Sharpsburg is another community that was hurt when their industries moved out in the early ’50s. That’s the nature of industry … what worked in the past in more of an urban setting just doesn’t work for today’s industrial needs.”
Powers, a resident of O’Hara Township, has been paid by the borough to write a book detailing the history of Blawnox in conjunction with the town’s upcoming centennial. He promises some new, exciting revelations about the borough that he won’t yet detail. After its industrial crisis, the borough struggled but eventually found a new identity, according to Powers.
“It’s turned into basically a suburban community with shops. There is a town there,” Powers says. “The town has been traditionally seeded with businesses along the main strip. But it’s basically an extension of suburbia.”
Old Thunder Brewing, the most prominent of the borough’s new businesses, opened in a limited capacity in December of 2020, before its taproom opened the following year. In addition to its three co-owners, the brewery employs four full-time employees.
“It’s great,” Dillman says. “We’re not making a ton of money, but we’re paying the bills, taking care of our people, keeping the lights on. We’re able to make the beers we want to make, and that’s kinda what it’s all about … we’re slowly growing the way that we want to year over year over year.”
He’s happy to see success for neighboring businesses, as well, he says.
“Having multiple successful businesses only benefits everybody. You know, if there was one shitty business and one cool business, it might bring the other one down,” Dillman quips. “But if we’re busy, everybody’s busy, and vice versa.”
In addition to the brewery, Freeport Road includes N Stuff Music, a large music shop in business for more than 50 years that also features small concerts and instrument lessons; Maenam Thai, a favorite of Pittsburgh sweetheart Rick Sebak, opened in 2018; a new location for coffee and ice cream joint The Black Canary, added in 2022; and several locally beloved spots for live music, among them Dietch’s, Moondogs, and Starlite Lounge.
Business growth in recent years comes after an intentional effort by Mayor Anthony Gross and the borough council. It became clear to them that Blawnox needed to be more hospitable for business in order to thrive, so within the past five years, local government has reorganized decades-old zoning laws to accommodate those looking to open restaurants and shops, according to Gross.
“It was old. It was from the ’60s, and some things then just needed to be changed,” Gross says of the borough’s zoning policy. “Maybe it was okay 50 years ago, but it’s not okay anymore. You know, things have to change. And you definitely get held back with people who don’t like change.”
Gross, a 67-year-old man who grew up in Wilkinsburg, says he’s resistant to change, too, but has been happy to oversee Blawnox’s transformation. Decades ago, he met his wife while they both worked at the University of Pittsburgh and around the time her family moved to Blawnox from Aspinwall. In the early ’90s, he and his wife moved into Blawnox.
“It’s beautiful. For a long, long time, we were a, so to speak, hidden little gem,” Gross says. “‘Blawnox? Where’s Blawnox? Never heard of that. What’s that near?’ It was the easiest to describe as, ‘well, it’s in the Fox Chapel School District.’ ‘Well, do you know where the Waterworks Mall is?’ Some people, they know different things, so that they could relate to this little town as you drove up the road.”
In 2022, a driver said to have road rage shot and killed a police officer in the borough. Then, this past March, a shooting at a warehouse in Blawnox that left one dead and another seriously injured again interrupted the peaceful suburbia of Blawnox. These incidents shocked residents, Gross says.
“That impacts a community like this, it’s small,” he says. “Because it’s never had that [type of incident].”
Typically, interactions in Blawnox prove incredibly friendly, according to Gross. He and his wife know and have a good relationship with their neighbors. Two of them, couple Amber Fontenot and Aaron Horsting, both 44-year-olds who parent a 9-, 16-, and 18-year-old, have lived in a house in Blawnox since 2016. Blawnox seemed like a nice enough area and provided an affordable price for a house for Amber, who does administrative work at Pitt while she pursues a Ph.D., and Aaron, a food service supervisor at a hospital.
“When we moved in, our neighbor across the street, it was June, so it was very hot, so we’re moving everything, we’re real sweaty, and she just came over, introduced herself and offered us some beers,” Horsting says. “It was just very friendly from the beginning, and that was a really nice memory. It was a nice introduction to the neighborhood.”
“She just brought us beers out of her fridge in a grocery bag,” Fontenot adds. “She’s like, ‘this is what I have.’ Just came over with cold beer. Great.”
The borough seemed emptier when they first moved, but they’ve been happy to see it fill with new businesses. They’d like to see more sidewalks added but find themselves happy to stay in town for fun.
“We don’t go anywhere. We go to Old Thunder,” Fontenot says, laughing.
