Having grown up in Monessen, Pa., along the Monongahela River, visited my grandparents in West Aliquippa, Pa., and spent time with relatives in Homestead, Pa., the March 26 Washington Post Magazine article "The ghosts of steel country" and its accompanying photographs brought back bittersweet memories of the three-river region near Pittsburgh. It's unfortunate, however, that the article did not include Donora, a small steel town roughly three miles downstream from Monessen. Donora was the setting for a public-health disaster that revealed that substantial drops in population in the area were not the only harmful legacy of the steel mills.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLyxtc2ipqerX6eyrrHMm5yroZ6cerW0xGarqLCZmHq1vsCgnJ2xXZ67brDOp6armV2lrnB%2Bj2puaGhkZH14e5OabJ1sZGaybn2YcWdmaWGahG6ElHJvZnGRboalrZRucJ9xlZTAtbvRsmWhrJ2h