Natrona is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Harrison Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It is located in

western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the Unite ...

within the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, approximately northeast of

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Natrona is situated along the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ; ; ) is a tributary of the Ohio River that is located in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States. It runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border, nor ...

at Lock and Dam Four, Pools Three and Four between Brackenridge, Natrona Heights, Karns, Allegheny Township, and Lower Burrell.

History

The original

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

of Natrona – then known as East Tarentum – was built as a

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

by the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company in the 1850s. It received its name from "

natron Natron is a naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate ( Na2CO3·10H2O, a kind of soda ash) and around 17% sodium bicarbonate (also called baking soda, NaHCO3) along with small quantities of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate. ...

", a naturally occurring mineral composed primarily of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. The company began with two

salt well A salt well (or brine well) is used to mine salt from caverns or deposits. Water is used as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process, which results in either a brine or a d ...

s in 1850, and continued operations until 1959. By 1876, the company, which owned the

cryolite Cryolite ( Na3 Al F6, sodium hexafluoroaluminate) is a rare mineral identified with the once-large deposit at Ivittuut on the west coast of Greenland, mined commercially until 1987. It is used in the reduction ("smelting") of aluminium, in pest ...

deposits of Greenland, brought the crude mineral to its works in Natrona, where the mineral was pulverized, sifted, heated, reacted with

calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a common substance found in Rock (geology), rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite, most notably in chalk and limestone, eggshells, gastropod shells, shellfish skel ...

and leached to produce pure carbonate of soda (

sodium carbonate Sodium carbonate (also known as washing soda, soda ash, sal soda, and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield alkaline solutions in water ...

) and aluminate of soda (

sodium aluminate Sodium aluminate is an inorganic chemical that is used as an effective source of aluminium hydroxide for many industrial and technical applications. Pure sodium aluminate (anhydrous) is a white crystalline solid having a formula variously given as ...

Canal

The Pennsylvania Canal once passed through Natrona and nearby communities in the early- to mid-19th century.

Railroads

The

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

had a

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

in Natrona at Vine and Federal streets; its rail line began running through the town in the mid-19th century. Later, the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with rival

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

in 1968 to form the

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania Railroad, ...

. The

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

required that the ailing

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

be added in 1969. The

Consolidated Rail Corporation Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It Conrail Shared Assets O ...

replaced the Penn Central Transportation Company and operated freight service through Natrona from 1976 until 1999 when it was divided between two companies. The

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

then operated trains through the town.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

has detoured passenger service through Natrona on occasion; its nearest station is Penn Station in

Downtown Pittsburgh Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, and officially the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River an ...

. The West Penn Railways provided electric street car service to Natrona from 1906 until 1937. Local factories, beginning with the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company's Natrona Works, also operated trains through Natrona. As of 2011, Allegheny Technologies used a track to transport materials between departments at its Allegheny Ludlum Brackenridge Works.

Mining

The Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company operated its Natrona No. 1 and Natrona No. 2

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...

mines at Natrona.

Geography

Natrona is situated on an

alluvial Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

along the

Education

The

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

is located within the Highlands School District. Highlands High School and Highlands Middle School are located in Natrona Heights.

Air pollution Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

levels (particularly

chromium Chromium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6 element, group 6. It is a steely-grey, Luster (mineralogy), lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium ...

) measured in Natrona area schools are among the worst in the United States.

In film

''Knightriders''

The film '' Knightriders'' (

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...

) by George A. Romero starring

Ed Harris Edward Allen Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in '' Apollo 13'' (1995), '' The Truman Show'' (1998), '' Pollock'' (2000), and '' The Hours'' (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Awa ...

used scenes shot on Garfield Street in Natrona (1980) for the movie. Most of the film was shot in nearby Fawn Township.

''Striking Distance''

Also, the film ''

Striking Distance ''Striking Distance'' is a 1993 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis as Pittsburgh Police homicide detective Thomas Hardy. The film co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Farina, and Tom Sizemore. It was directed by Rowdy He ...

'' (

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

) starring

Bruce Willis Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting (TV series), Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and has appeared in over one hundred films, gaining ...

and

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. In a career spanning over five decades, she has performed across several productions of both Sarah Jessica Parker filmography, screen and stage. List o ...

uses a sequence where boats jump over the dam at Natrona; the Tarentum Bridge can be seen just above the dam over Jacks Island, although the structure was added there later through editing. The bridge is officially named the '' George D. Stuart Bridge'' (part of Pennsylvania Route 366) and actually located about downstream spanning the river between Tarentum and

New Kensington New Kensington (known locally as New Ken) is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 12,170 at the 2020 census. It is situated along the Allegheny River northeast of Pittsburgh and is part of the Pittsb ...

Notable people

Leon Czolgosz Leon Frank Czolgosz ( ; ; May 5, 1873 – October 29, 1901) was an American wireworker and Anarchism, anarchist who assassination of William McKinley, assassinated President of the United States, United States president William McKinley on Septe ...

, the assassin of U.S. President

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

in 1901, spent part of his teenage years working at a glass factory located in the town. Rauchway, Eric (2004). "Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America" (paperback ed). Hill and Wang. . *

Evelyn Nesbit Florence Evelyn Nesbit (December 25, 1884 or 1885 – January 17, 1967) was an American model (person), artists' model, chorus girl, and actress. She is best known for her career in New York City, as well as her husband, railroad scion Har ...

, American artists' model, chorus girl, and actress born in Natrona. She is best known for her years as a young woman in New York City, particularly her involvement in a deadly love triangle between railroad scion

Harry Kendall Thaw Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947) was the son of American coal and railroad baron William Thaw Sr. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, he is most notable for having murdered the renowned architect Stanford Wh ...

and architect

Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect and a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms at the turn of the 20th century. White designed many houses ...

References

External links

Natrona Comes Together AssociationCommunity Revitalization Plan for Natrona
{{authority control Pittsburgh metropolitan area Company towns in Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania