Abandoned Western Pennsylvania: Separation from a Proud Heritage

The exploration of abandonments connects us to history and cultural remembrance. Discover the forgotten record behind some of western Pennsylvania’s stunning abandoned sites with this collection of fifteen tales. The rusty industrial giants, silent mills, ghostly steel towns, transportation graveyards, empty schools, shuttered churches, and other relics of a proud regional heritage embrace the western Pennsylvania landscape. Explore the once dynamic economic drivers such as U.S. Steel’s Carrie Furnaces and Cambria Steel Company, and witness some colorful trolley and railroad graveyards. One can still sense the ache of the European immigrants with the loss of their beloved churches, while a raw community wound remains with the closing of a fellowship charity club. Commodities producers such as a ceramics manufacturer, W. A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop, and the Waterside Woolen Mill were once revered craft masters. Delve into additional forsaken spaces such as a distillery, county jail, quiet steel towns, two forlorn schools, a covered bridge, and a gristmill. The structural skeletons of the past continue to hold the spirits of its former inhabitants and cry out to the world to feel its ethereal historical presence.