History & local legend
On Sunday, September 24, 1950, smoke from Canadian forest fires darkened Pennsylvania in the middle of the afternoon. Around Tyrone, the light began fading at about two o’clock. By three, streetlights were on and frightened residents were calling the police, unsure what had happened to the sky.
In nearby Bellwood, Mary Brunner lifted her two-year-old daughter onto the porch railing to watch the sky change from yellow-green to black. At Ninth Street and Washington Avenue in Tyrone, a driver struck pedestrian Noah Richardson in the darkness. Richardson died from his injuries.
Tyrone pilot Will Walk was flying home from an air show in Reading. Looking down, he could see headlights burning on the roads below. At his altitude, he could also smell smoke that people on the ground could not. The drifting smoke explained the strange afternoon that local residents remembered as Black Sunday.
