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WHEREAS, the City of Pittsburgh must recognize and honor those who have helped shape our region's rich and storied history; and
WHEREAS, Joseph Walter Himmelstein, born in 1855, and his wife Caroline immigrated to the United States from Baden, Germany in 1875 to start a new life as dairy farmers, being sponsored by an American family; and
WHEREAS, Joseph started the Himmelstein Dairy Farm in the late 1800s at the end of Grand Avenue in Allegheny City, which housed no less than fifty dairy cows; and
WHEREAS, Himmelstein Dairy served the community for more than sixty-five years, delivering milk in horse-drawn wagons and employing neighboring families; and
WHEREAS, Joseph W Himmelstein II and Joseph W Himmelstein III and his son Joseph D Himmelstein continued the family dairy tradition, even generously supplying desperate families with milk during the milk strike of the fifties; and
WHEREAS, Joseph II and Joseph III served our country valiantly in World War I and World War II respectively. Joseph III served in the First Cavalry Division and looked after our military's horses, before returning home to finish his education at Penn State, where he earned a degree in agriculture; and
WHEREAS, in 1887, Joseph Walter Himmelstein purchased a beautiful water-abundant tract of land adjacent to what is now Riverview Park; and
WHEREAS, years later, during the Great Depression, the Himmelsteins worked with the City of Pittsburgh and the Works Progress Administration to map and construct more than thirty miles of Bridle trails throughout Riverview Park that are still used today; and
WHEREAS, Joseph III helped create the Riverview Valley Stable, which housed more than twenty-five horses used for horseback riding lessons, boarding, and showing. Thus began a long standing relationship between the Himmelsteins and their horses that has spanned six generations, and continues to this day. Stacey Himmelstein White and her daughter Rhiannon White have ev...
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