BUTLER, Pennsylvania — The drive between Butler, Pennsylvania, and the Ohio village of East Palestine is less than 42 miles long. In between are the villages and boroughs of Lyndora, Connoquenessing and Evans City on the Pennsylvania side before you cross the state line directly into the village of East Palestine.
It is a stretch of geography that includes bucolic rolling pastures, the gentle slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, traces of what once was powerful Steel Valley between New Castle, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, and a mix of decay of what once was and a rebuilding of what may be.
It is what is often referenced to by coastal elites who have never driven through this very Americana scenery as “flyover country” or “the middle of nowhere.”
It is filled with people who work hard and stay because there is value to them to be…
