Donora: Clean air started here

When you drive across the Donora-Monessen Bridge, you're greeted by a sign that reads, "Next to yours, the best town in the USA." Although the area has suffered both during the 5 decades there was a U.S. Steel plant along the horseshoe bend in the Monongahela River, and in the 7 decades since then, Donorans are incredibly proud of their hometown, which birthed not only Stan "The Man" Musial but both Ken Griffey, Sr., and Jr. The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society was there to mark the 75th anniversary of a freak weather event that smothered the valley with the smoke from domestic fires, motor vehicles, trains, as well as industrial toxins from the wire factory and especially the zinc smelter. It became a rallying cry for the environmental movement in the middle of the 20th century.

We were treated to a private lecture by the Donora Historical Society's historian, Brian Charlton, who can talk extensively and extemporaneously about the area.

Above left: "Donora smog" painted into Halloween decorations on an empty storefront window.

Above right: The high school teams are the Donora Dragons.

Below: "After many silent springs, a fatal fall--the Donora Smog" and its victims.

I highly recommend this 4-minute video, "A Town Called Donora: A Digital Story." It includes a dramatic introduction as well as a reading of Guenter Kunert's poem "Song of a Small Town" ("Lied von einer kleinen Stadt (Fuer eine Orgel)") published in East Berlin in 1950 after reading this Life magazine article with several black and white photographs.

The green oxygen canister below was used to deliver oxygen to some of the hundreds of residents who sickened on the carbon monoxide, ozone, nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and trioxide, volatile organic compounds, and the components of acid rain (nitric acid and sulfuric acid) over the 5 days.

If you would like to learn more about the smog event, you can purchase Andy McPhee's book, Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town (2022), the first book-length treatment of the event. McPhee is a nurse and an accomplished writer and will be speaking to the Society during the 2024-2025 lecture season.

We admired the many exhibits of the museum before enjoying lunch at a local diner. We hope you'll join us on our next day trip!