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
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