Duquesne, like many Mon Valley towns, has been struggling to shake off the decades-long economic devastation that came with the collapse of the steel industry.

Situated in a lush green valley along the Monongahela River, Duquesne has waited many years to see an economic rebirth, said Mayor Phillip Krivacek, recalling a time when the expansive Dorothy Six blast furnace of U.S. Steel's Duquesne Works was the major employer in town.

On a sun-splashed Wednesday morning last week, Mr. Krivacek, 73, together with a group of residents and Allegheny County officials gathered at the Port Authority park-n-ride lot at South Duquesne Boulevard and Library Place, to pay homage to that long-gone era.

Like many Mon Valley towns, Duquesne was once a solidly working class, and yet prosperous, town. The hustle and bustle of those years is now depicted in a new mural painted on a wall in the lower part of the park-n-ride lot.

Built in 1995, where there was once a cluster of old, abandoned buildings, the wall demarcates the parking lot into two sections. Last month, it was painted by a team under the tutelage of Pittsburgh artist Kyle Holbrook, whose community art project partners seasoned painters with young artists.

The mural, which is about 20 feet tall and 400 feet long, depicts a time that Mr. Krivacek and others said must not be forgotten, even as the town seeks to transform itself.

"Duquesne is changing every day," he said. "We have grown into a bedroom community and we continue to see new businesses and buildings coming up in places that used to be abandoned buildings."

As the town strives to embrace a new economic era, sustained by private businesses and a small industrial center coming together in a formerly abandoned swath of land along the boulevard, Mr. Krivacek said he worries that newcomers and younger residents might not fully appreciate what life was like in Duquesne's past.

Looking to the mural to provide some insight, Mr. Krivacek and Allegheny County Councilman Bob Macey, both Duquesne natives, marveled at the historical landmarks and artifacts depicted in it.

"I see much of the life I knew when I was growing up here," said Mr. Macey. "I see Kennywood, where I played as a child, and the steel mill, where I worked for many years."

The mural also incorporates images of some major landmarks, like the steel and brass doughboys statue, which once stood atop the hill on Library Place; the red 68 trolley that once ferried travelers from the Mon Valley into Pittsburgh; and the Dorothy Six furnace, which was torn down in 1990.

The statute of the doughboys is a conspicuous part of the mural, Mr. Krivacek said, because not many people even knew it existed. Made of steel and brass, the statue used to be atop the hill on Library Place, just below the old Carnegie Library, Mr. Krivacek recalled, adding that: "[the statue] was taken down, melted to use the steel during World War II."

"We always want to put much of the community's history into the portrait," said Mr. Holbrook. Last year, he unveiled 26 murals in eight neighborhoods along the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway.

This year, his company, KH Design, has recruited 130 young artists from 65 neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh to work on murals in Duquesne, Dormont, Carnegie, Homestead, Mt. Lebanon, McKeesport, McKees Rocks and some Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

"Our goal is to inspire young artists to believe in themselves enough to pursue their artistic skills," he said, adding that his project also doubles as a program to focus teenagers into a disciplined routine that keeps them off the streets.

Although it is funded by a number of Pittsburgh foundations, the principal sponsor this year is National City bank. Working with a budget of $530,000, Mr. Holbrook assigns a team of about 14 young artists with an older artist and supervisor, and each participant is paid about $1,000 for five weeks of steady work.

Citing his administration's ongoing investment in rehabilitating Mon Valley communities, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato praised Mr. Holbrook for his outreach to young artists.

"My administration was immediately interested [in Mr. Holbrook's project when he proposed it last year] because he looked at a bunch of young people, and instead of seeing problems, he saw their potential, and he chose to invest in them," he said.