ITTSBURGH — In 2017, when Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva stood near the tunnel to the Pittsburgh locker room with his hand over his heart while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, the former Army Ranger was the only member of his team to do so. Apropos of the moment, that game against the Chicago Bears […]
OHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania — Ken Miller walked into one of the four storefronts on the right flank of the Richland Shopping Center, asked if this was where he could change his voter registration, sat down with a purpose and began to fill out the form. “It is time to go,” he said flatly as he checked […]
f all the riots that have gone unchecked in the country this summer, the one in Kenosha, Wisconsin, might matter most with regard to the November presidential election. The vivid imagery in the days following the police shooting of Jacob Blake shows a town in devastation. Rioters blocked traffic. And they stole gasoline from a […]
ITHOLE CITY, Pennsylvania―”Pap, I think you had better come see Pithole.” T.B. Whitacre penned those words to his grandfather on July 30, 1865. In January, just seven months earlier, an oil strike along Pithole Creek at Holmden Farm had drawn him and hundreds of people, mostly speculators, to the property where the oil was first […]
EST VIRGINIA — Craig Hettlinger explains that he started drinking when he was about 16 years old. He escalated to stronger drugs three years later when he played Division I soccer at Marshall University. He started every game for a team that was then ranked in the top 20 in the country. “My freshman year, […]
AKMONT, Pennsylvania—Long before you find yourself standing in front of the Smoke N’ Guns shop, the delicate aroma of coffee beans and hand-rolled cigars beckons your senses as you walk along Allegheny River Boulevard. Outside the shop, four black leather chairs spread a respectable 6 feet apart are waiting for either the overflow of customers […]
LTOONA, Pennsylvania—As the scent of fresh-cut grass delicately fills the air, so do the aromas of hot dogs and hamburgers coming from the grill on the lower deck. Just past right field, there is an amusement park where you can hear the slow clink, clink, clink of the roller coaster as the carriage climbs its […]
PITTSBURGH—Six months after a private staggered into the Fort Riley Army base infirmary in Kansas with a raging fever, chills and a sore throat, this city braced for the impact as the first wave of the 1918 flu pandemic made its way here. It had already traveled from Kansas to Europe as troops shipped off […]
ROSPERITY, Pennsylvania―How this little village earned its name is rooted in an old tale featuring a common last name, one-in-a-million odds and a likely exaggeration about how many settlers were attracted to the middle of the frontier. “It was founded in 1848 by a gentleman named Robert Wallace,” explains Clay Kilgore, executive director of the […]
ESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pennsylvania—The ad shows a drive-by of a rural, post-industrial unnamed town in this western Pennsylvania county. The woman in the ad says her name is Janie. She is a fisher who caught two legal Northern pike the day her daughter was born, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and now believes the choice […]
EALLSVILLE, Pennsylvania—If you are driving too fast, you’ll miss her. It often happens at the pitch of the rolling Appalachian Mountain, where she has stood for nearly 100 years: the statue of a sturdy frontier woman holding a rifle in one arm and an infant in another, with another child clinging to her long skirt. […]
UMONVILLE, Pennsylvania—What happened here 266 years ago had repercussions so profound they changed the course of world history abruptly and irreversibly. A disputed moment occurred that led to the French and Indian War, the first true world war that would drag on for seven years, draw blood on five continents and have costs that would […]
UTLER, Pennsylvania—Last Monday was supposed to be a celebration, a coming together across the ages and across the country to mark the day “Ghostbusters” debuted in 1984, a film that made movie executives cringe but won the hearts of moviegoers. The film was going to be shown at drive-in theaters from coast to coast. John […]
NILES, Ohio—Truth be told, neither the home William McKinley was born in nor the front porch 55 miles west of his birthplace from which he conducted his presidential campaign exist anymore. The small, wood-plank-sided home here on state Route 46 is a replica of where the 25th president of the United States was born. The […]
RISTOL, Tennessee—There is not one thing in the jeans, flannel-lined jackets, denim jackets, overalls, shirts, carpenter pants, custom uniforms or masks produced by L.C. King Manufacturing that is not made in America. Nothing—not even the threads or the rivets. “All the components, the raw materials, are purchased in the United States and are actually manufactured […]
RISTOL, Tennessee—April’s race weekend came and went with no one filling the steep stadium stands of one of the largest sports venues in the world; no one standing proudly to sing “The Star-Spangled-Banner”; and no hushed anticipation before the most famous words in motor sports, followed by the roar of the engines that power some […]
LLENTOWN, Pennsylvania—President Donald Trump, speaking to the Washington Examiner ahead of an event at a medical supply facility in this key swing state, took aim at Joe Biden’s mental faculties, at one point claiming his Democratic challenger “has absolutely no idea what’s happening.” Trump was reacting to news that Biden had teamed up with former […]
BELLE VERNON, Pennsylvania—As Ron Necciai recalls, the first two batters both went down in strikes. The third guy got lucky—sort of. The ball got away from the catcher, who quickly got the batter out at first. It was May 13, 1952, a cold, damp Tuesday night for 1,100 people at Shaw Stadium in the Blue […]
OHIOPYLE, Pennsylvania—Like most places in the United States, this tiny patch of a town is struggling to stay afloat. Like most places, people here are trying to help others out. And like most places, those who live and work here wonder whether their community will ever be the same. Vicki Marietta’s family has been in […]
MIDDLETOWN, Md.—There is an argument to be made that the coronavirus pandemic could change the food supply chain for the long term. It may disrupt across the board our reliance on distant producers, processing plants and large chain grocery stores. In the process, it would connect many of us to local food in the same […]