In the late 1740's, British traders built a trading post known as Trent's Fort where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet and form the Ohio River. This soon became an important trading post because of its location. In 1754, under the orders of Dinwiddie, a more permanent fort named Fort Prince George was built. The French felt that the British were tresspasing on their territory so soon after they attacked the fort and built Fort Duquense there in its place. This fort became the largest French post in Pennsylvania. The British captured Fort Duquense in 1758 during the war. Once the British captured the fort, they built a new structure named Fort Pitt, after the British prime minister at the time, William Pitt.

Fort Pitt was noted as the most elaborate British for in America at the time. The basic design of the fort was a pentagon with five bastions. Outside of the true fort was another defensive wall with ditched entrenchments that ran across the peninsula. At the tip of the point lay another outer defensive wall. The fort had twelve underground casemates below the ramparts which stored explosive munitions, provisions, and other supplies. However, these sections were not watertight and many goods were lost during floods.

Probably due to the fact of the nearby timber being in short supply, General Stanwix directed that Fort Pitt should be a "dirt fort". The walls and bastions were all built of earth instead of logs. Fort Pitt was practically a great five-sided ditch, with the earth of the ditch thrown up to form a rampart over twenty feet high and sixty feet wide. On the landward side, the ramparts were supported by strong brick retaining walls, with the tips of the bastions further reinforced by cut stone. On the less vulnerable river sides, the walls and bastions were sodded.

After the war, people began settling the area and the city of Pittsburgh was founded. The site that Fort Pitt was located is now known as Point State Park. A few structures from the fort still exist including the wall that runs between the rivers and Bouquet’s Blockhouse, the oldest authenticated structure west of the mountains.