The 1948 Donora Smog
Donora, Washington County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Major federal clean air laws became a legacy of this environmental disaster that focused national attention on air pollution. In late October of 1948, a heavy fog blanketed this valley, and as the days passed, the fog became a thick, acrid smog that left about 20 people dead and thousands ill. Not until October 31 did the Donora Zinc Works shut down its furnaces--just hours before rain finally dispersed the smog.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In late October 1948, a temperature inversion trapped industrial fumes over the mill town of Donora, turning a fog into a lethal, acrid smog. Emissions from the local zinc works choked the valley for days, killing about twenty people and sickening thousands before rain finally cleared the air. The disaster shocked the nation and became a rallying cry for regulating what factories could pour into the sky.
Why it matters
Donora's tragedy helped launch the modern American environmental movement and the federal clean air laws that followed.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · 1948 Donora Smog
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cement City
Donora, PA · est. 1997
Built in 1916–17 to house workers at American Steel & Wire's Donora plant, Cement City was a planned community of 100 units in 80 Prairie-style buildings. Its buildings were poured in place from concrete — an experimental construction method meant to deliver durable, affordable company housing quickly. One of several such concrete communities across the country in that era, it endured to shelter generations of steelworkers' families and is now a National Register Historic District.
Whiskey Point
Monongahela, PA · est. 1949
On this bluff above the Monongahela in August 1794, hundreds of angry frontier farmers gathered at the height of the Whiskey Rebellion, furious over the new federal excise tax on the whiskey they distilled from surplus grain. Albert Gallatin, a rising western Pennsylvania statesman, used his persuasive gifts to steer the crowd away from armed defiance and toward a peaceful path. The moment helped defuse a crisis that had threatened to become open civil conflict against the young national government.
Darr Mine Disaster
Rostraver Township, PA · est. 1994
On December 19, 1907, an explosion tore through the Darr coal mine near Van Meter, killing 239 men and boys — many of them Hungarian immigrants who had come to America for the promise of steady work underground. It was the deadliest blow in the deadliest month American coal mining has ever known: more than 3,000 miners died that December, including 34 in the nearby Naomi mine weeks earlier. In Olive Branch Cemetery, 71 Darr miners lie together, 49 of them never identified.
Monogahela River Navigation System
Forward Township, PA · est. 2012
Begun in 1838, the Monongahela River's system of locks and dams became one of the nation's earliest and most successful efforts to tame a river for year-round travel and trade between Pittsburgh and Fairmont, West Virginia. Millions of tons of coal moved through its locks to feed Pennsylvania's mighty coke, iron, and steel industries. After the federal government acquired the system in 1897, the Army Corps of Engineers expanded and modernized it for generations to come.