McDonald, OH

McDonald is a village in southern Trumbull County, laid out beside the Mahoning River as a company town for Carnegie steel. The village took its name from Thomas G. McDonald, the Youngstown district superintendent for Carnegie-Illinois Steel. Mills were built in 1916, the first steel rolled in January 1916, and the village incorporated in December 1918. The 2020 census counted 3,172 residents. The company-town plan still shows in the street grid, where early homes on Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinley avenues sit close to the mill complex.

McDonald's civic life grew alongside the mills. A volunteer fire department formed in 1920, and the municipal building followed soon after. The Mahoning River remains the village's natural reference point, while Youngstown and Warren place McDonald within the larger valley's industrial orbit. The river valley remains part of its daily frame. It is a small place with a distinctly steel-belt beginning: houses, municipal services, and local identity all grew out of the same works that put the village on the map.