Family excursions shouldn’t end when school starts — and there’s a fun and educational Sunday outing for your multi-generational group waiting in South Park. Other parks owned by Allegheny County offer walking trails, swimming, golf, skating, dog parks, ice skating and picnic groves, among many amenities. But in South Park you’ll find something with a lot of history and a lot of character: the historic Oliver Miller Homestead, with ties to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 — the first shots of that conflict took place nearby.
South Park is Home to Oliver Miller Homestead… And a Herd of Bison
Built in 1772 by pioneers Oliver and Mary Tidball Miller, who moved west from Philadelphia, the house did double-duty as a church before there was a house of worship in the area. In 1927, Allegheny County purchased land from the Miller family (and some surrounding properties) to create South Park.
Today, a self-guided tour of Miller Homestead provides a glimpse of what frontier life was like for the frugal Scots-Irish, German and Welsh immigrants who came to Western Pennsylvania seeking a better life. At the heart of the tour, which is open to the public on Sundays from 1:30-4:30 p.m. (from May through December), is the original, six-room, furnished stone farmhouse and the adjacent spring
house (a 200-year-old spring still runs through it). Reproduction buildings were added after 1973, when the nonprofit Oliver Miller Homestead Associates became the official curator for the property; they include a small period log house, a forge, a beehive outdoor baking oven, a fire pit and the “Trading Post” barn that serves as a welcome center and gift shop.
Throughout the site, docents in 18th-century costume answer questions and demonstrate frontier skills such as weaving, quilting, open-air cooking, candle making, tool making, blacksmithing, tinsmithing and furniture making (on select Sundays). Be sure to stop by Emily’s Wildflower Garden, which produces herbs used for medicinal purposes and vital farm crops growing in small plots.
Stop by the Game Preserve
When you think you’ve had your fill of history, head to the Game Preserve to gaze at the herd of bison. (No, they’re not buffalo — that’s a slightly different creature.)
Sixty million bison once roamed across the plains of North America; many Indigenous cultures relied on them for food and shelter until rampant hunting drove the species near extinction.
In 1927, Allegheny County acquired a herd as part of a preservation project. Despite their ancestors’ cruel fate, South Park’s nine bison live a cushy life. Shaggy and scroungy as they look behind their fence, these herbivores — which were named the National Mammal of the United States by President Barack Obama in 2016 — can gallop up to 30 miles per hour, and have even temporarily escaped their South Park habitat on rare occasions. The herd receives regular veterinary care and checkups from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and new babies are born every spring; the relatively tiny offspring epitomize cuteness as they shadow their mothers.
The Game Preserve, which also has a duck pond, is free to visit daily from 7 a.m. until dusk. (At 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday mornings, you can watch the caretaker feed the animals and hear a short talk.) Leave your dog at home when you visit — you wouldn’t want to scare the National Mammal — but don’t forget your camera!
Story by Susan Fleming Morgans
Photos by Laura Petrilla