Topic: Art Rooney

Arthur Joseph "Art" Rooney, Sr. (January 27, 1901 – August 25, 1988), often referred to as "The Chief", was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football franchise in the National Football League.

Rooney's great-grandparents, James and Mary Rooney, were Irish Catholics who immigrated from Newry in County Down, Northern Ireland to Canada during the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. While living in Montreal, the Rooney's had a son, Arthur (who would become the grandfather of the subject of this article). James and Mary later moved back to the British Isles, not to Ireland, but settling in Ebbw Vale, Wales, where the iron industry was flourishing, taking their son Arthur, then 21, with them. This Arthur Rooney married an Irish girl, Catherine Regan, (who was also Irish Catholic) in Wales and they had a son Dan. Two years after Dan Rooney was born, the family immigrated back to Canada and eventually end up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1884. Along the way the family grew to include nine children of which Dan was the second.

Dan Rooney remained in the Pittsburgh area, and eventually opened a saloon in the Monongahela Valley coal town of Coulter, Pennsylvania (or Coultersville). This is where Dan Rooney met and wed Margaret "Maggie" Murray, who was the daughter of a coal miner, and where the couple's first son, Art, was born. Dan and Maggie would eventually settle their family in Pittsburgh's North Side in 1913 where they bought a three story building at the corner of Corey Street and General Robinson Street. Dan operated a cafe and saloon out of the first floor with the family living above. The building was located just a block from Exposition Park, which had been home to the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team until 1909.