Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Apollo, PA

Apollo is a borough in Armstrong County on the Kiskiminetas River, about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in a former coal-mining region.

Apollo was settled in 1790 and laid out in November 1816 under the name Warren — the log cabin home of the Drake family from that era still stands and is one of the oldest buildings in Armstrong County, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

When the post office arrived, the town was renamed Apollo, for the Greek god, to stop goods and mail from being carried past it to the other Warren in Warren County, and it was incorporated as the borough of Apollo on March 15, 1848.

The Western Division of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal passed through Apollo between the 1820s and the 1850s, floating boats on the Kiskiminetas River through a system of slackwater dams; stone remnants of the canal survive along the Roaring Run Trail.

Apollo's iron industry began with the Kiskiminetas Iron Company in 1856, and by the late 19th century the Apollo Iron and Steel Company dominated the local economy.

In 1895, Apollo Iron and Steel president George Gibson McMurtry hired famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design a model town for the company's workers.

Apollo suffered badly in the 1936 St. Patrick's Day flood, when the Kiskiminetas River rose more than 15 feet above flood stage, damaging or washing away 95 homes and destroying the borough's bridge.

The 2020 census counted 1,615 people in Apollo, packed into just 0.35 square miles — a density of more than 5,000 people per square mile.

At the 2000 census, Apollo's residents lived in 762 households.

The Roaring Run Recreation Area lies one mile upriver from Apollo and is reached by the Apollo Kiski River Trail.