On September 19, Cross Roads Presbyterian Church on Wexford Road will mark 200 years since a group of Scotch-Irish settlers bought the land under it for 20 cents an acre. Seven days later, North Park will host the tenth Pour at the Park, a beer and wine fundraiser barely old enough to be in middle school. One institution has been standing since before Pennsylvania had a governor named anything you'd recognize. The other is barely old enough to vote.
Put them side by side and a pattern shows up that's easy to miss if you only ever hear about one event at a time. Neither one runs on inertia. The 200-year-old church is still funded and staffed by people who show up on purpose, the same way the 10-year-old festival is. Nothing near Greenbriar Estates that feels permanent got that way automatically. It got that way because someone kept renewing the commitment, year after year, long after the founding generation was gone.
The Church That Predates Pine Township's Other Buildings
Cross Roads Presbyterian's own history says the congregation was the first church of any denomination in Pine Township and the eighth Presbyterian congregation organized north of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The building started as a log meeting house, initially referred to as X-Roads before the name got spelled out. The same property was deeded for both the church and a school, and that log church and the brick building that replaced it served double duty as the school until 1870, when the township finally built a separate schoolhouse on the same grounds.
The anniversary festival on September 19 runs from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. at 3281 Wexford Road. It's free, and it's built for a range of ages rather than a single crowd: game booths, a petting zoo with a petting pig, a balloon artist, food trucks, musical groups performing through the afternoon, and a community hymn sing. Anyone who wants details ahead of time can check crossroadsgibsonia.org or call the church directly at 724-935-3636.
What's easy to overlook is that a 200-year-old institution doesn't stay open by existing quietly. It stays open because a congregation keeps rebuilding it, literally, generation after generation, from log cabin to brick sanctuary to whatever comes next. The bicentennial isn't a plaque unveiling. It's a fundraiser and a recruitment event wearing a birthday party's clothes.
The Festival That's Rebuilding the Park One Ticket at a Time
A week later, on September 26, North Park hosts the 10th Pour at the Park, opening at 5:00 p.m. with a live band called The Delaneys, food trucks, a children's zone, and tastings from a rotating lineup of ciders, beers, wines, and spirits. General admission runs $35 online. It's a fundraiser for the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, the nonprofit that helps maintain the county's regional parks, and the proceeds go toward the physical upkeep those parks need every year that a tax line item alone doesn't cover.
This year's event opens with something more permanent than a beer pour: a public planting of 100 native trees. That detail matters more than it looks like it should. North Park's tree canopy isn't inherited from nowhere. It gets replaced, expanded, and maintained by exactly this kind of organized, ticketed effort, the same way the church down the road gets rebuilt one capital campaign at a time.
| Cross Roads Presbyterian Bicentennial | Pour at the Park (10th Year) | |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Saturday, September 19 | Saturday, September 26 |
| Time | 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. | Opens 5:00 p.m. |
| Location | 3281 Wexford Road | North Park |
| Cost | Free | $35 general admission |
| What it funds | Congregation and church grounds | Allegheny County Parks Foundation upkeep |
| Signature detail | Community hymn sing | Planting of 100 native trees |
The Park Itself Was Never Just Sitting There Either
North Park's own history follows the same logic on a longer timescale. The park was created in the 1920s as part of the Allegheny County Park System, spread across land in McCandless, Pine, and Hampton Townships, and today totals just over 3,010 acres, making it the largest park in the county system. The lake at its center wasn't a natural feature. It was built in 1935, and at more than 75 acres it remains the largest man-made body of water in Allegheny County, ringed by a 4.5-mile trail through the surrounding woodland. The landscaping was done by Paul B. Riis, a designer who had also worked on the National Park System and helped develop Yellowstone. The boathouse that anchors the lake today was built in that same mid-1930s push and, according to the county's historical archive, is still in active use nearly a century later.
None of that happened by leaving the land alone. It happened because a public agency spent a decade actively building a lake, a boathouse, and miles of trail where none existed before, using the same kind of organized civic effort that Pour at the Park now channels through ticket sales instead of a 1930s public works budget. The mechanism didn't change. Only the funding source did.
Why This Matters More Than a Calendar Listing Would
It's tempting to read a bicentennial and a tenth anniversary as two unrelated dates that happen to land in the same week. The more accurate reading is that they're the same story told at different speeds. A 200-year-old congregation and a 10-year-old fundraiser are both proof that nothing in this corner of the North Hills coasts on age. The church needed 200 years of people volunteering their Sundays. The park needed a 1930s public works crew and now needs a September crowd willing to pay $35 for cider and a tree planting. Greenbriar Estates, over in Marshall Township, sits close enough to both that residents get to watch the mechanism work in real time, twice, one week apart.
If You're Going
A few practical notes for anyone planning around either weekend, or the North Park calendar beyond it:
- Cross Roads Presbyterian's festival on September 19 is free and family-oriented, with parking near the church at 3281 Wexford Road.
- Pour at the Park on September 26 requires an online ticket ahead of time at $35 for general admission, and the event kicks off with the tree planting before the tastings open.
- North Park's L.L.Bean Outdoor Discovery program runs an Owl Prowl Kayak Tour on October 11 at 5:30 p.m. on North Park Lake, for anyone who wants a quieter version of the same water the festival crowds will be near two weeks earlier.
- The North Park Lake Shore Loop Trail, a paved 5.1-mile loop around the water, is the easiest way to see the boathouse and the lake on a normal weekend without a ticket at all.
Two anniversaries, one week apart, both quietly making the same point: what looks permanent around here has always been rebuilt on purpose. That's worth knowing whether you've lived on Frey Drive for twenty years or you're still learning which roads lead to Wexford Road faster than the GPS suggests.
If you're weighing a move to this corner of Marshall Township, or just curious what your own home near Greenbriar Estates might be worth in today's market, Zita Billmann is happy to talk through it. Request a Free Home Valuation whenever you're ready.