Pittsburgh marks 100 years of 'h'

Pittsburgh residents celebrated the 100th anniversary of the day the city won a battle with the federal government to keep its name-ending "h." Monday marked the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names giving in to lobbying pressure from Pittsburgh officials and returning the "h," which had been removed in 1890 as part of a bid to standardize spellings of U.S. locations, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. "It's an interesting, quirky thing about us," Craig Davis, vice president of sales and marketing for VisitPittsburgh, said of the story behind the spelling. "And I think most people who live in Pittsburgh are very protective of their 'h.'" However, despite the "h" being firmly in place for 100 years, the city name remains one of the most often misspelled in the country, ePodunk.com said. The Web site said Pittsburgh has been "America's Most Misspelled City" for a decade, with misspellings being more common than such cities as Cincinnati and Tucson. "That's another thing to be proud of. We're the most misspelled city in the world. I like that," said Andy Masich, chief executive of the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District.