Fox Chapel is a
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
...
in
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Allegheny County ( ) is a County (United States), county in Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,250,578, making it the List of counties in Pennsylvania, state's second-most populous county, after Philadelp ...
, United States. It is a suburb of
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
located northeast of downtown. The population was 5,343 as of the
2020 census. The borough continually garners national prominence and is home to many of the wealthiest and most powerful
patriciate families in Pennsylvania.
History
In the 1750s, the
Seneca Indians lived in the region. Until the late 18th century,
American Indian tribes hunted and fished in the general Fox Chapel area.
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
and
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
both claimed the territory. The dispute was not resolved until after the
Revolutionary War. Today, less than 1% of its population is
Native American.
The first white settler in the area was James Powers, who arrived around 1790. The first schoolhouse was on Squaw Run, where it stood in 1806. It was a
log house
A log house, or log building, is a structure built with horizontal logs interlocked at the corners by notching. Logs may be round, squared or hewn to other shapes, either handcrafted or milled. The term "log cabin" generally refers to a smal ...
. A church was organized in 1818 on Kittanning Road, on a branch of Pine Creek. The
Pittsburgh Field Club, which was established in 1882, moved to present-day Fox Chapel in 1915, and the Fox Chapel Golf Club opened in 1919.
Shady Side Academy opened its senior school on property that was formerly two large farms, a gift from prominent Pittsburgh industrialist Wallace H. Rowe, in 1922. A nearby private estate, built in 1928 by steel industrialist James E. Lewis, became the academy's standalone middle school campus in 1958.
Geography
Fox Chapel has six borders, including
Indiana Township to the north,
Harmar Township to the northeast, three of the five non-contiguous areas of
O'Hara Township to the east, southeast, west and southwest, and the Pittsburgh neighborhood of
Lincoln–Lemington–Belmar to the south.
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the borough has a total area of , of which 0.13% is water.
Demographics
As of the
2000 census,
there were 5,436 people, 1,875 households, and 1,599 families residing in the borough. The
population density
Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
was . There were 1,942 housing units at an average density of . The
racial makeup of the borough was 93.29%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.55%
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.02%
Native American, 5.22%
Asian, 0.04%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 0.13% from other races, and 0.75% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or
Latino of any race were 0.68% of the population.
There were 1,875 households, out of which 41.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 79.9% were married couples living together, 3.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 14.7% were non-families. 13.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.89 and the average family size was 3.18.
In the borough the population was spread out, with 30.1% under the age of 18, 3.3% from 18 to 24, 18.1% from 25 to 44, 33.7% from 45 to 64, and 14.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 44 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.2 males.
As of 2015, the median income for a household in the borough was $154,722, and the median income for a family was $169,596. About 3.3% of families and 4.5% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
.
Religion
Four churches are located within the borough: Faith
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
Church, Christ Church Fox Chapel, Fox Chapel
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
Church, and Good Shepherd
Lutheran
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
Church.
In 1953 a group of families living in the Fox Chapel area began to worship together at Shady Side Academy; the congregation became Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church, located at the intersection of Fox Chapel Road and Field Club Road. The Rev. Bickford Lang served as the first pastor. The congregation was officially organized in October 1953 with 339 charter members. The chapel was erected in December 1953, and worship services began to be held on the site of the present church. The church facility has grown to include a Christian Education building, atrium, fellowship hall and a Georgian sanctuary. The Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church has been led by five senior pastors since its founding.
Chabad Fox Chapel - The Jewish Center, opened in 2002 and serves the entire Fox Chapel Area with a Jewish community center, Jewish day camp, Hebrew school and full adult education program with no membership fees.
Adat Shalom, located on Guys Run Road in Indiana Township, serves approximately 240 Jewish families from the Fox Chapel area.
Government and politics
Borough Council
* Andrew C. Bennett (R) - President
* Harrison Lauer (R) - Vice President
* Betsy Monroe (D)
* Fred Leech (D)
* Bradley Harrison (R)
* Sarah Hanna (D)
* Jonathan Colton (D)
* Walter A. Scott III (R) - Mayor
Education
Public education is provided by the
Fox Chapel Area School District. The high school is located in O'Hara Township. The middle school is located in
Dorseyville, a small community five miles to the north of the borough in Indiana Township. Elementary school children attend schools located in either Indiana Township or O'Hara Township. These are O'Hara Elementary, Kerr, Fairview, and Hartwood. Fox Chapel Area School District, which includes the communities of
Aspinwall, Fox Chapel, Indiana Township, O'Hara Township,
Sharpsburg, and
Blawnox, has received numerous awards in the past; each of its schools have been named
National Blue Ribbon Schools, and the Fox Chapel Area High School has been awarded the Silver Medal rank by the U.S. News & World Report.
Fox Chapel is home to
Shady Side Academy, a
co-educational
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
college preparatory school. Shady Side Academy operates on four separate campuses— a junior school which offers private education for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and grades one through five known formerly as Fox Chapel Country Day School,a middle school for grades 6–8, and a senior school for grades 9–12. Shady Side Academy has operated in Fox Chapel since the early 1920s, when it relocated its upper school from nearby urban
Shadyside within the Pittsburgh. The middle school campus was a later addition, the result of the academy's 1958 purchase of the former James E. Lewis estate, built in 1928. Both campuses and their playing fields are located in the vicinity of the
Pittsburgh Golf Club. Shady Side Academy's fourth campus, the urban junior school, is located in the city in
Point Breeze.
Fox Chapel Country Day School which is now part of Shady Side Academy, offers private education for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and grades one through five. The Fox Chapel
Chabad
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (; ; ), is a dynasty in Hasidic Judaism. Belonging to the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) branch of Orthodox Judaism, it is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, as well as one of ...
Community Hebrew School has classes on Sunday and Wednesday and offers a supplemental Jewish education.
The Pittsburgh Japanese School (ピッツバーグ日本語補習授業校 ''Pittsubāgu Nihongo Hoshū Jugyō Kō''), a
weekend supplementary Japanese school, uses the middle school facilities of Shady Side Academy. The school, established in 1993, originated from a group of parents starting a Japanese class system in 1977.
Notable people
*
Rocky Bleier, former professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
player,
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
*
Bill Cowher, former head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers
*
Jim Delligatti, creator of the
Big Mac
The Big Mac is a brand of hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced by a Greater Pittsburgh Region, Greater Pittsburgh area Franchising, franchisee in 1967 and expanded nationwide in 1968, and ...
*
Chip Ganassi, former racecar driver and current owner of
Chip Ganassi Racing
*
Eddie Ifft, stand-up comedian, radio host and sitcom actor
*
Edgar J. Kaufmann, department store magnate
*
Teresa Heinz Kerry, businesswoman and philanthropist, wife of U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the Presidency of Barack Obama#Administration, administration of Barac ...
*
Kathryn Kuhlman, healing evangelist
*
Anisha Nagarajan, actress and singer, star of ''
Outsourced''
*
Barry Nelson, former professional
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
player,
Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division (NBA), Central Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), East ...
*
David Newell, actor, ''
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
''Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' (sometimes shortened to ''Mister Rogers'') is an American half-hour educational children's television series that ran from 1968 to 2001. It was created and hosted by Fred Rogers. Its original incarnation, the se ...
''
*
Matthew Ridgway
Matthew Bunker Ridgway (3 March 1895 – 26 July 1993) was a senior officer in the United States Army, who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1952–1953) and the 19th Chief of Staff of the United States Army (1953–1955). Although he ...
, U.S. Army general
*
Rick Rockwell, reality TV personality starring in Fox's 2001 "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?"
*
Beth Ostrosky Stern, current wife of radio's shock jock
Howard Stern
References
External links
Borough of Fox Chapel official website
{{authority control
Populated places established in 1934
Pittsburgh metropolitan area
Boroughs in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
1934 establishments in Pennsylvania