The Donora Historical Society is the oldest in Washington County, dating back to 1946, and since that time has done its best to preserve the borough’s history.
Pennsylvania was a haven in the decades preceding the Civil War for people seeking to escape enslavement in the South. But that wasn’t the case in Pennsylvania’s earlier years, when enslaved people and those who claimed ownership of them were part of the local population, including in Westmoreland County. The
With Election Day approaching, the Senator John Heinz History Center is partnering with 15 museums, libraries and cultural organizations across the region to activate the connection between history and civics
The modern "clean air" movement in the United States can be traced back to one small mill town in western Pennsylvania. In one brutal week in 1948, Donora's roughly 14,000 residents went about their daily lives while being subjected to one of the worst public health and environmental disasters in United States history. Before the horrendous incident, the borough of Donora, about an hour south of Pittsburgh, was proud of its industrialization. And like its sister steel city, the community was rel
Residents of the Pennsylvania town woke up from a mysterious toxic fog before the Halloween in 1948, which will be later known as the “1948 Donora smog.”