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What’s In a Word? The Etymology of Smog
“The word thus coined is a contraction of smoke and fog — ‘smog’ — and its introduction was received with applause as being eminently expressive and appropriate. It is not exactly a pretty word, but it fits very well the thing it represents, and it has only to become known to be popular.”
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Gone Was the Wind
If even a slight breeze had strolled through the Donora valley that week the smoke would have broken up, giving residents some respite. But no, there was no breeze to be had, not in Donora, nor in Monessen to the south, nor in Monongahela to the north.
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Our Last ‘Real’ Conversation
To his friends, co-workers, and extended family, my father was friendly, even gregarious, charming, polite, and an intelligent conversationalist. To his children, though, all six of us, my father was, well, kind of a dick.
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Who Died in Donora’s Deadly Smog?
It seems that not everyone received a death certificate in 1948, or, if they did, it was lost or never archived. Marriage applications, census data, immigration passenger lists, and so forth, are also often inaccurate or provide inconsistent information.
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Who Was William Donner, the Man?
Most people know Donner, if they know him at all, as the founder of Donora, a town with a name unlike any other in the world. They might know that Donner was connected to the Mellons —Andrew W. and Richard B. — and that he was instrumental in creating the zinc and steel mills in Donora at…
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A Lesson in Negotiating
Donora, Pennsylvania, would likely not exist today if town founder William H. Donner hadn’t finally persuaded Margaret Heslep, a surprisingly crafty negotiator, to sell her land.
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Even Cleaner Air Starts in Donora
With the EPA undergoing extensive downsizing and the Trump administration wanting to open previously protected lands to oil and shale drilling, Donora continues to remind the nation of the need for clean air.
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5 Tips for Building Your Own Town
If you’ve ever wanted to start your own town, there may be no better formula for it than the one William H. Donner used to start Donora at the turn of the 20th Century. Donner was a colleague of banking and industrial magnate Andrew Mellon, and they had decided to build a series of steel mills south…
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Is Andrew Posey Buried Here?
You can see the gravesite from the Stan “The Man” Musial Bridge, but you would find it unremarkable. It is an odd gravesite, sitting as it does on a patch of grass in the middle of a dirt parking area next to a welding company in an industrial park on the banks of the Monongahela River.
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Life and Death Meet in a Vet Clinic
Lots of big dogs in here today, I thought, as I sat in the waiting room of the Veterinary Specialty & Emergency Center in Leavittown this afternoon. That Bernese mountain dog is huuuge! Two men with a large, black dog, maybe a lab. A woman and her two young children with her cocker spaniel. Only…