PITTSBURGH — Six months after a private staggered into the Fort Riley Army base infirmary in Kansas with a raging fever, chills, and a sore throat, this city braced for the impact as the first wave of the 1918 flu pandemic made its way here.

It had already traveled from Kansas to Europe as troops shipped off to war, then headed back to the United States, first in Boston, then Philadelphia, and finally landing here in Pittsburgh the last week of September.