Signs erected to welcome visitors to Brier Hill area

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The city put up signs welcoming people to its Brier Hill neighborhood — the “home of the first Italian immigrants in Youngstown.”

The signs are located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and on Burlington Street.

Brier Hill is roughly bounded by the Girard border, West Federal Street, Worthington Street and Belmont Avenue.

The first Italian immigrants settled in Brier Hill in 1871, Tony Trolio said.

Trolio was born and reared in that section of the city and is the author of two books on Brier Hill’s history.

By the 1950s, more than 10,000 Italians lived in Brier Hill with several of them working nearby in the steel mills, he added.