Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Abstract

On the morning of October 27, 1948, residents of Donora, Pennsylvania, awoke to find a thick fog enveloping the river valley. One observer noted that while watching a passing train belch smoke as it started up the grade that led out of town, he saw that the smoke coming out of the locomotive’s smokestack was not rising as it normally did. Instead, it oozed over the lip of the smokestack and sank down like a puddle of black ink falling into a pool of water.