“Lincoln Way: The Untold Story of an Abandoned Community”

Nestled at the bottom of a hill in Clairton, the abandoned neighborhood of Lincoln Way, with its 30-40 deserted homes, became a site for urban explorers and vandals. Despite myths like the fabricated “Beast of Lincoln Way,” the reality was more mundane. Historical records from the 1910s describe Lincoln Way as a vibrant Black community with a self-sufficient infrastructure, including a church, stores, a butcher shop, and gardens, all necessitated by severe segregation in nearby communities.

Some of the homes in Lincoln Way in Claiton, PA were dangerously decayed and showed signs they had been uninhabited for decades.

Life in Lincoln Way saw occasional violence and crime, often linked to systemic racism. In 1925, four police officers brutally assaulted a resident with dementia, a crime for which they were acquitted. Media from the area often reflected racial prejudices, and notable incidents included the 1932 arrest of two non-resident men with a bomb, linked to a series of destructive bombings.

Abandoned homes like this are what Lincoln Way in Clairton is remembered for by most people, but its true story is shrouded by myths.

Most men in Lincoln Way worked at the nearby Carnegie Illinois Steel, enduring constant pollution. As children moved away and working men died, the population dwindled, leaving elderly widows. Abandoned homes proliferated as these residents passed away or moved to nursing homes. By 2012, the last house was vacated, with extensive vandalism and theft already plaguing the neighborhood. Industrial pollution, systemic racism, and economic decline led to Lincoln Way’s eventual abandonment, erasing a once-bustling enclave from the map.
Each of the homes at Lincoln Way had its own story, but few many fragments left to put them together.