A Jewel in the Crown of Old King Coal: Eckley Miners’ Village

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Jewel in the Crown of Old King Coal: Eckley Miners’ Village It survives – somewhat miraculously – as a vestige of Pennsylvania’s coal mining heritage, a link in what was once a chain of little coal communities, or patch towns, that dotted the anthracite region. “Eckley is part of the puzzle, but not a unique part. There were numerous, almost identical, mining patch towns like Eckley,” explains Vance Packard, site...
read more

Scranton Iron Furnaces

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Scranton Iron Furnaces Rising out of a hillside in the City of Scranton, four massive stone blast furnace stacks remind residents and visitors of the importance of the nineteenth-century iron industry. Build between 1841 and 1857, the Scranton Iron Furnaces ranked as the country’s second largest iron producer by the 1880s. The titan Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company rolled the rails of a nation. Focal point of a...
read more

Who Are These Anthracite People? Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Who Are These Anthracite People? Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum In the beginning were only the great transverse mountains, seen as ridge upon overlapping ridge stretching far into the horizon of northeastern Pennsylvania. Wide expanses of sweeping landscape contained virgin forests – thick, verdant, and heavy. Deep valleys formed by resplendent rivers – on the east, the Delaware; to the west, the Susquehanna; and northward, the Lackawanna where...
read more

Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts Original works of art by Charles Demuth (1883-1935) will be on view at the Demuth Foundation in Lancaster from Sunday, February 1, through Sunday, March 22, 1998. In addition to selections drawn from the foundation’s permanent collection, the exhibit will feature paintings and memorabilia lent by private collectors. For more informa­tion, write: Demuth Foundation, 114 East King St.,...
read more

Down the Main Line

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Down the Main Line For forty years I ran both freight and passenger trains down the Main Line of the Reading Railroad (later Conrail), from Pottsville, in Schuylkill County, to Philadelphia. I was hired as a fireman in 1941 and shoveled my share of coal to keep those old steamers rolling. After my stint in the Army in World War II, I returned to my job and was ultimately promoted to engineman, running steam...
read more