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In an effort to understand the anthracite mining operations of Northeastern Pennsylvania, numerous attempts were made to locate an A-Z encyclopedic reference only to find that no compilations existed other than the annual reports issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Mines. A number of these published volumes were available to me locally at the Colorado School of Mines. Several issues proved harder to locate but visits to Lehigh University in Bethlehem and Lafayette College in Easton completed the set from 1870 through 1945. Recently with the help of the Pikes Peak Library District inter-library loans working with Slippery Rock and Clarion Universities, The California University of Pa, and Lafayette College, annual reports thru 1970 were borrowed, transcribed and loaded. Finally my thanks to Robin from the State Library of Pennsylvania for providing a number of critical pages I missed.

After identifying the mining districts associated with the Northern Field, the next question was what to do with the data? Following a year's effort with Rick Sedlisky proofreading each year as it was transcribed we had the data in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Because that format did not readily lend itself to reporting, it was converted to a Microsoft Access data base. That form, however, proved to be hard to distribute, so a website was purchased and after a second conversion to MySQL combined with invaluable programming assistance by Mitch Logue it is what you see today.

My sincere thanks to both Rick and Mitch with out whose efforts this site would not have been possible.

As a native of Scranton, this project is a natural extension of my interest in the railroads of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Their glory days and those of the anthracite mines are forever tied together. Hopefully this site will enable us to better understand the anthracite industry's role in our history.

Period photos, railroad, Sanborn and other maps, aerial photos, news articles and mine inspection narratives are added as they become available. If you have materials you would like to contribute please contact me from this Comments and Feedback link.


Frank Adams
Colorado Springs, CO
March 2010