Welcome to the New Year and the beginning of another set of the tours of small towns and their national banks for which you have become accustomed. This month we’ll be visiting Clairton, Penn. Though at one time called the “Coke Capital of the World” for its steel producing capacity, Clairton has fallen on hard times and has turned quite ghostly.
Clairton is a city of roughly 6,500 in Allegheny County that sits on the meandering Monongahela River about 15 miles as the crow flies southeast of Pittsburgh. It is easily reached via State Route 837 (along the river) or State Route 885. Clairton’s existence began just after the turn of the 20th century when the United States Steel Corporation acquired a large tract along the west side of the Monongahela River; this became the site for an integrated steel mill and coke production facility, which eventually became one
