Sparking the Industrial Revolution

Eighty-five years later and 370 miles away, Thomas Mellon, a retired judge who years earlier had immigrated to the United States from County Tyrone, Ireland, had an expansive vision of his own. Joining with his sons Andrew and Richard, he founded T. Mellon and Sons' Bank. The private banking house that opened at 145 Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh in 1869 was furnished with a safe, an iron stove, several chairs and a large store of ambition.

T. Mellon and Sons' would invest capital to visionaries like Henry Clay Frick, whose steel manufacturing company was the predecessor to U.S. Steel. Mellon also invested early in future giants such as Alcoa and Westinghouse. In the process, the bank helped spark the industrial revolution in Pittsburgh.

The bank prospered during the post-Civil War years. In the Panic of 1873, when half the banks in Pittsburgh failed, T. Mellon and Sons' never closed.

Andrew W. Mellon would become president of T. Mellon & Sons' Bank upon his father's retirement in 1882. He eventually followed in Hamilton's footsteps, becoming the 49th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and the only one in history to serve under three U.S. Presidents.