Courtesy of the Walter E. Donaldson Family, this is a photograph of Donaldson’s Crossroads intersection in the 1920s. The Donaldson home is located at the far left in this photo. This busy intersection, named for the Donaldson family, was a crossing of country roads early in the 20th century. McMurray Road crosses left to right while the Pittsburgh-Washington Cinder Road crosses from the bottom. The farmhouse was built in 1900, and was razed in early 2011 to permit redevelopment of the property.
Currently we know this location as the intersection of Route 19 South and McMurray Road with an average traffic count in excess of 46,000 vehicles daily.
In 2003, Peters Township Public Library, in partnership with the Senator John Heinz History Center, began a series of oral history interviews featuring past and present residents. Taking part in these interviews was Robert J. Donaldson and his sisters, Patricia Donaldson Stutzman and Alice Donaldson Coffield. During the course of the interviews, numerous photographs were shared like the one on this page, which led to a call for historic photos from other residents.
The response was enthusiastic, with hundreds of images either donated or loaned so that the library could share the visual history of the community. Most of the images have been scanned and many are available for you to view and enjoy on the Local History Photos page on this web site. Visit the library where you can checkout the oral history transcripts that were transcribed from these interviews. They are available on the 2nd floor nonfiction under 929.2 PET. Ask a librarian if you need help locating this series.