Midland, PA (Borough)

Midland was built beside the Ohio River as a company town for Midland Steel, which Crucible Steel expanded after buying the works in 1911. Steel shaped the borough's streets and workforce, including Black and immigrant mill workers, until the mill's downsizing and closure in the 1980s hit the town hard. The old industrial address now has a different rhythm: Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center and its charter school opened in 2006, bringing concerts, theater, arts classes, and nearly 100 events a year to the river town. Midland still carries its steel-town outline, but the marquee and school have become part of how Beaver County knows the place.