Harris Theatre

I have a couple of postcards from the Grand Theatre in Donora advertising the Vitagraph 1911 film VANITY FAIR. Although only a three-reeler, it was a huge production at a time when most films were only one reel.

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Lost Memory: Here is a 43 minute video from the Weather Channel about the Donora Death Fog.

I grew up in Donora in the 70’s. The Liberty was the only one left then – it was very run down. I saw Willie Wonka there. Then it closed, and reopened around 76. I remember a double-bill there also – was Tom Thumb, and a strange documentary tiltled Beyond and Back. We saw a very grainy/linty Jaws there about a year after it’s realease. Then it became an adult theatre.

Growing up in Donora at this point of time was unique. The townsfolk always spoke of this magical “days gone by” era, of economic vibrancy. The mills were gone, we watched all the car dealers, stores, JC Penney, etc slowly close up. Gosh, we had a McDonalds that opened, then closed it’s doors two years later! There were scores of neighborhood stores, 4 or 5 to a block – all gone now.

I have an old postcard from the Grand Theatre.

According to information received from the Donora Public Library, a 1976 diamond jubilee program states, in part, “Hopton and Evans built the Grand Theater on McKean Avenue. Later it became known as the Harris Theater. The word ‘Grand’ is inscribed in stone above the front of the building. It was at the Grand Theater where Dick Powell came to sing and act, as well as other famous singers and actors. Boxing shows were also held on the stage of the Grand Theater.”

Wasn’t there a relationship of some sort btwn the Warner Studios and the Stanley-Warner Theatres – possibly S-W taking over the Warner theatres after the Paramount Consent Decree or something like that?

I’m familiar with the death fog – I hadn’t yet arrived on the scene, but my mother was living there then, and I’d been told all about it. Even as a kid in the 50s I can remember the town was full of smoke from the zinc works at the mill, not as bad as the death-fog, but it was pretty bad – and everything was filthy dirty. I would get up in the morning, take a bath, put on clean clothes, come downstairs and my grandmother would say “Davey, honey, run down to the mailbox and get the mail”. She lived in town, so it wasn’t far to the mailbox at the street. When I came back in I’d be filthy just from the soot on the stair railings and mailbox. The town is in the Monongahela River valley, and all the smoke was stuck there in the valley. You couldn’t get away from it in town because in those days nobody had air conditioning, not even the stores. Many of the towns in the river valley south of Pittsburgh had various US Steel or J&L Steel operations creating similar conditions, but none as bad as the death fog in Donora. I recall that even in downtown Pittsburgh at noon all the street lights would be on and the stores had their signs lit because it looked like dusk outside due to the smoke. Today, most of the mills are gone and the few that remain have heavy pollution controls on them, and now Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. BTW, the Loews Waterfront Theatre is build on the site of the US Steel Homestead Works – which was also spewing out a lot of smoke back in the day. The mill was dismantled except for the smokestacks, and redeveloped into a retail-entertainment-residential area called “The Stacks”.