Fifty-five years ago, the first known American deaths from air pollution occurred right here in southwestern Pennsylvania, in the river town of Donora. Donora, located on the western bank of the Monongahela River in Washington County, was named after Nora Mellon, wife of R.B. Mellon, and W.H. Donner. Donner and Mellon purchased the land in which their Union Steel Company would construct a rod mill that later became the American Steel and Wire Works. In 1948, 14,000 people resided in Donora, and many thousands lived in towns in the immediate vicinity.