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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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Still Fighting for Clean Air Today
“People would come to the town, and they would say, ‘What’s that smell?’ And people who lived here would say, ‘What smell?’ And my grandpa would say, ‘Well, it smells like money.'”
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Donora: The Birthplace of Clean Air
It took the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 and the assassination plot on Grover Cleveland in 1894 for the Secret Service to beef up its presidential protection force. And it took a tragedy in little Donora, Pennsylvania, for the nation to legislate for clean air.
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Temperature Inversions and Deadly Smog
Common to all three tragedies were two key elements. First, large factories in each area had been spewing enormous amounts of pollutants into the air, the most deadly being sulfur dioxide. And second, Mother Nature came calling in the form of something called a temperature inversion.
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Donora’s Field of Dreams
Probably the most famous player to ever sprint down this field was the legendary Joseph “Joe Cool” Montana. Montana was unequivocally one of the greatest quarterbacks in history and a Hall of Fame pick in his first year of eligibility. And he played here, right here in Donora, on Legion Field, where all Ringgold games were played.
