Iconic Towns of the Mon Valley: A Backward Glance

Clairton, PA

The four blog articles that follow are a celebration of the "darkly lovely" old steel towns in the valley of the Monongahela River.  I call them "iconic" because they do stand as icons in this region.  Each of these towns was known for something unique.  They enjoyed their moment in the sun, famous around the world for their wealth, for their productivity, and--most of all--for their product: steel.  This one made steel rods; that one made steel thingamajigs; the other one made steel whatchamacallits.  The names of these towns were whispered like prayers by many Greeks, and Russians, and Serbs, and Croats, and Poles.  To them, this valley was the land of opportunity, the living dream, for which they would trade everything they knew.  No one longs to come here now...except melancholy trespassers like me.  

Duquesne, PA

 Time constraints limited me to the downriver towns in Allegheny County.  (Remember that the Mon is one of only three major rivers in the world that flows northward.)  There are other towns upriver and to the south, and some of them are just as storied as the places I've visited: Donora, Monessen, Charleroi, and Brownsville.  In fact, the historic town of Brownsville is one of the oldest, most fascinating municipalities in the western half of the state.  Maybe someday...

Duquesne, PA

 The Monongahela is a wide river that passes between steep hills and old countryside.  The word "Monongahela" even means "steep-banked river" in some long-forgotten native tongue.  In the 18th century, before the advent of coal and steel, the Valley was famous for its rye whiskey.  "Monongahela Rye" was prized in the colonial cities along the coast.  Who knows--now that the steel mills are mostly gone, maybe distilleries would be a way to embrace the future and the past at once? 

Duquesne, PA

 This valley is well worth many years of discovery.  A city-planning document published in 1988 talks about ways to remake the valley after the departure of its defining industry.  This old study reaches some of the same conclusions that I reached in my four town visits: 1) The Valley is geographically isolated, with no major roadways in or out; 2) Industrial sites--whether active or inactive--separate the towns from their rivers; 3) and morale in these towns is low.  If you look at them on Google Earth, or any detailed map, you'll see that each town has its broad expanse of waterside flats where the industrial complexes once stood...or still stand.  Proximity to water is just good for people's emotional health.  Among other things, the presence of water creates a sense of connectedness to the larger world.  But these industrial sites join with busy roadways and railroads to cut the towns off from their river.  They also serve as a demoralizing reminder of lost identity.  And yet, many of those who have remained here are committed to their communities.

Clairton, PA

 These places make me think of the line from TS Eliot: "This is how the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper."  These towns look as if battles have been fought in them, but outright violence didn't do this; all their ruination is due to simple neglect.  If foreign armies came to do to our prosperous, historic communities what we ourselves have done to them, we would take up arms and shed our blood in their defense.  These towns have been decimated and left half abandoned, and it is our doing.

Braddock, PA

 Despite their almost European stateliness and humanness, these Mon Valley cities are in many places ghostly ruins, haunted, melancholy, bleak.  Vacant windows, boarded up storefronts, old businesses all locked up tight with ancient merchandise still on the shelves.  Twenty years ago, they were just waiting for the people to return.  But in the meantime, the roofs started to go, and now they're waiting to disappear.  

Duquesne, PA

 The collapse of the steel industry is a complex economic reality.  My suspicion is that many factors contributed to it: a diminishing supply of ore; increased labor costs; a growing sense of the environmental impact.  But at its heart, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these communities were sacrificed to corporate greed.  It was just cheaper to manufacture things elsewhere.    

McKeesport, PA

 This is the Frankenstein's Monster of our own making.  Greed will be our undoing, I promise.  It will despoil the planet long before we've stopped needing it.  Greed will make our water unusable and our air unbreathable.  Where will we go then?  Where will we flee?  

Clairton, PA

 If we cannot treasure what we have built, if we cannot retain a sense of pride in the work of our hands, then we will be given over to the empty passions of mindless men.  Give me more.  Give me bigger.  Give me newer.  

Clairton, PA

The Valley of the Monongahela River is beautiful...in its way.  Its towns are like open air museums, where little bits of ancient Americana lie rusting in the weeds and in the cracked windows of forsaken stores.  It's a place where Nature--for all her long humiliation--is retaking possession of the land.  There is a beauty to be discovered here.  There are lessons to be learned, too.  

Clairton, PA

Anybody remember Dutch Boy Paints?  

Well, just because I'm a melancholy ex-English teacher, here are Lord Byron's thoughts on the matter:

They say that hope is happiness;

But genuine love must prize the past,

And memory wakes the thoughts that bless;

They rose the first--they set the last.

And all that memory loves the most

Was once our only hope to be,

And all that hope adored and lost

Hath melted into memory.

Alas!  It is delusion all:

The future cheats us from afar,

Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are.

1815