Financier and banker Richard K. Mellon (1899-1970) was one of the richest men in the United States in the 1960s. He was the last great leader of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon financial dynasty. Mellon used his status and wealth to help lead the city's famed renaissance.

Richard King Mellon was born on June 19, 1899 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into one of America's great financial families. His grandfather, Thomas Mellon, established the private bank of T. Mellon and Sons in 1869 after his retirement from a long career as a lawyer and judge. The Pittsburgh bank prospered and served as the foundation for the family's vast holdings throughout the nation.

One of Thomas's sons, Andrew W. Mellon, later Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, took over the bank in 1880 when his father died. Another brother, Richard Beatty Mellon, acquired 50 percent of the bank in 1889 and later became president of...