The front window of this museum boasts “Clean Air Started Here”;
well, that was only after this sleepy mill town on the
Monongahela River experienced some very, very dirty air. In
1948, two large plants dominated Donora – the US Steel-owned
Donora Zinc Works, once the largest such plant in the world, and
the American Steel & Wire plant. On October 26, 1948, a dense
haze blanketed the town – this was a common occurrence, but
unlike previous episodes, this fog failed to blow away. A
temperature inversion in the valley trapped the noxious emission
from the two plants, and soon people began to fall ill. Finally,
the plants were shut down on October 31, just hours before a
rainstorm helped clear out the smog. All told, roughly half of
Donora’s population of 14,000 people had become sick and 20
people were dead from the smog. Fifty more people died soon
after the smog lifted, and an untold number had their lives
severely shortened by the episode. The plants never admitted
responsibility for the deaths, calling the