Junction Hollow is named for the
Pittsburgh Junction Railroad, which first laid tracks there in the 1880s, and the idea of a Junction Hollow spur line was to divert rail traffic north through
Schenley Tunnel (beneath Neville Street) to a rail yard along the
Allegheny River, thus avoiding rail congestion in Downtown. Prior to the railroad the area was known as the Four Mile Run Valley, for its stream that was named on account of its distance from
The Point. Today the stream is piped underground to the river. In the 1950s and 1960s planners created a grand proposal to fill the hollow with a research complex extending from the
University of Pittsburgh and
Carnegie Mellon University to the river, but it was never realized. Since the 1990s, the
Eliza Furnace Trail extends into the hollow, where it is called Junction Hollow Trail. == See also ==