It took far less time for pioneering journalist Nellie Bly to travel around the world than it did for her statue to finally be erected at Pittsburgh International Airport.

The unveiling, first announced in March 2020, coincided with the start of the pandemic.

But now, over two years later, a figure of Bly will finally be installed at the airport in a spot next to two other icons with ties to the area — George Washington and Steelers great Franco Harris.

Thursday’s dedication ceremony, including County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis and Heinz History Center CEO Andy Masich, will take place on what would have been Bly’s 158th birthday.

It’s scheduled to get underway at 2 p.m. in the Center Core of the Airside Terminal.

In 1889, Bly became famous for an-around-the-world journey she completed in a world-record 72 days, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds after her departure on a steamship from New York. The journey was inspired by Jules Verne’s widely read novel “Around the World in 80 Days.”

Bly chronicled her travels in a series of articles for the New York World newspaper and ended up writing a book of her own, “Around the World in Seventy-Two Days,” published in 1890.

She was born as Elizabeth Jane Cochran near present-day Burrell Township in Armstrong County in 1864.

Her journalistic career began at the former Pittsburgh Dispatch, when she was still a teenager. Female journalists in that era commonly wrote under a nom de plume; her pen name was inspired by a song from the time, “Nelly Bly,” by fellow Pittsburgher Stephen Foster.

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