More than 30 Civil War-era cannonballs unearthed last month by a construction crew in Lawrenceville are set to be removed from the site on Tuesday.
Ordnance Holdings Inc. of Reisterstown, Md., a contractor that specializes in handling unexploded ordnance, has been hired to remove the cannonballs from the site, at 39th and Butler streets near Allegheny Arsenal and across from Arsenal Middle School.
A construction crew from Franjo Construction of Homestead discovered the cache — between 35 and 43 — of buried cannonballs.
Tuesday’s “contained removal” is expected to take about five days “contingent upon the possible discovery of additional cannonballs underground,” city officials said Monday.
City officials said a plan had been developed between the city, Ordnance Holdings and Milhaus Ventures, the developer of the site, to safely remove the cannonballs.
Motorists will have limited access to a section of 39th Street during the work.
Pedestrians and non-business traffic will be prohibited from accessing 39th Street between Butler Street and the Allegheny River while the removal occurs. Commercial traffic accessing businesses on 39th Street may experience periodic traffic disruptions.
Residents of 39th Street will not be affected beyond intermittent traffic delays.
City officials said people will not be allowed to watch the cannonballs being removed.
The Allegheny Arsenal was a key supplier of munitions to the Union Army during the Civil War. It was the site of the single worst civilian disaster of the war — an explosion Sept. 17, 1862, that killed 78 people, many of them women.
A large apartment complex is going up at the 39th Street site that’s under construction.
First Published: April 24, 2017, 2:49 p.m.