Monessen natives are proud of their town
Matthew Shorraw has a vision to restore this former bank building at Fifth Street and Donner Avenue in Monessen.
The reading area, complete with a fireplace, in Monessen Public Library.
William Henry Donner, one of the founders of Monessen
The Douglas Education Center consumes a string of former storefronts facing Schoonmaker Avenue in Monessen.
Industrialist William H. Donner was attracted to Monessen in the late 1880s by the Monongahela River and railroad as means to ship and receive goods at his new tin mill.
Donner quickly turned his attentions from his American Tin Plate Co. to construct a new steel mill in neighboring Donora as Monessen was set to become the biggest city and industrial center in the Mon Valley.
“Monessenites are very proud of where they come from,” says Matthew Shorraw, 26, a local historian and preservationist.
The city was founded in 1898 by a group of investors in the East Side Land Co., with the principal having been Civil War Col. James Schoonmaker, who was vice president of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railway Co. The town took its name from the river and Essen, Germany, once an important coal and steel hub in Europe.
Monessen’s population peaked at between 25,000 and 30,000 residents before Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel in the 1980s shuttered a mill that once produced high-quality steel used to produce Chrysler automobiles. Monessen was dealt an earlier blow in 1972 with the closing of Page Steel & Wire Co., a mill that supplied the wire for the cables that support the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Today, the city’s population stands at about 7,700 people.
“This is the very city that built this country,” Monessen Mayor Lou Mavrakis says.
Mavrakis welcomed President Trump to Monessen during last year’s presidential campaign, drawing himself 54 interviews from newspapers and other publications from across the globe who were curious as to why this once Democratic stronghold was interested in the Republican candidate.
“We have to make them see our problems,” he says, referring to a downtown district and nearby residential neighborhoods that are dotted with blight.
Shorraw said Presidents Kennedy, Wilson, Truman and McKinley also visited the city.
Monessen has other neighborhoods that are well maintained on roads less traveled than the main streets through the downtown, Schoonmaker and Donner avenues.
Meanwhile, there are many positive things happening in the city.
The Douglas Education Center has restored a string of buildings for student housing, classrooms and programs, one of which bears the name of horror filmmaker Tom Savini, who is considered to be a master of special-effects makeup.
Bianchi Monuments at 173 Donner Ave. is celebrating its 100th year of being in business this year.
“I guess it’s because of the loyal repeat customers we have,” owner Carol Parnell says. “We’ve been fortunate really and truly.”
The city also has a supermarket, unlike the neighboring towns of Donora and Charleroi.
“The community has supported us,” says Jeff Duritza, co-owner of the Monessen Foodland at 701 Donner Ave. “It’s been a good little cute store. It’s worked for us.”
The Homestead-based Mon Valley Initiative is investing more than $1 million to convert the former Eisenberg’s Department Store at Fourth Street and Schoonmaker Avenue into mixed-income apartments.
“It’s so nice to see a building fixed up instead of torn down,” says Shorraw, who’s trying to find the means to preserve the former Monessen Savings & Trust Building at 500 Donner Ave.
”I strongly believe this town can come back. It needs to reinvent itself,” he says.