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What Happened to Residents’ Health Long After the Donora Death Fog?
“Our scientists tell us that the Donora episode was a rare phenomenon. We hope and pray it will never recur. This study by the Public Health Service into the Donora episode, the most exhaustive ever made on a problem in air pollution, is a step toward positive assurance that such a thing will not happen…
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From Boom to Bust: What Happened to Little Webster?
Cuddled along a bend in the Monongahela River in southwestern Pennsylvania, across from the industrial town of Donora, Webster once boasted a population of about two thousand. Anyone traveling up the Mon around the turn of the twentieth century would have seen a charming village at the base of
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The Carnegie-Donora Connection, Part 1: Frick Shows Carnegie Value of Vertical Integration
William Henry Donner, founder of Donora, was never a titan in the mold of Rockefeller, Carnegie, or the Mellon brothers were, but he learned a great deal from them all. Including how to build his mills in Donora.
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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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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…
