FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
HOW COAL CAN BENEFIT YOU
COLLIERY ARTICLES
THE STORY OF ANTHRACITE
OLD ST. NICHOLAS BREAKER
NEW ST. NICHOLAS BREAKER
THE COMMENTATOR GLOSSARY OF
ANTHRACITE MINING TERMS

Anthracite, or hard coal, as history indicates, was discovered in 1790 in Schuylkill County at the southern end of the coal fields in north eastern Pennsylvania. These coal fields extend 50 miles east and west, and 100 miles north and south, and cover approximately 484 square miles, containing the richest deposits of anthracite in the world.

By 1817, less than 30 years after its discovery, a number of small, individual Anthracite mines had been opened.

In 1822, it was reported that 1488 tons of Anthracite had been shipped by canal from the Schuylkill Region, and the industry,
as a business, had its beginning. Development was rapid, and by 1825 the Schuylkill Canal was completed, providing transportation of Anthracite from Pottsville to Philadelphia. The barges of "arks," originally pulled by men using breast bars and long tow ropes, took six weeks to travel the 108 miles. After tow paths for the mules were laid parallel to the canal, the boat or barge sizes were increased from 28 to 200 tons and the amount of coal transported grew dramatically.

In 1842, the first train from Philadelphia made the trip to
Pottsville to compete for the coal trade. That year, the canal
and the railroad together, shipped 500,000 tons of Anthracite
to Philadelphia.

But the engine whistles sounded the requiem for the boats, and by 1867, the canal was running out of business. It was only a matter of time until the railroad would become the lone carrier of coal to the major markets. The year 1865 found 170 mining operations in the Schuylkill, Lehigh and Mahanoy Regions, employing 19,000 men. In 1871, a newly formed company was charteered as the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, and Famous Reading Anthracite was born. Here in the southern Schuylkill Region are large deposits of unmined hard coal, which indicate that the commodity can be producted for centuries to come. Reading Anthracite alone, has millions of tons in its reserves. Presently, many of the Company's open pit operations are being worked to dephts below the levels and elevations of its earlier underground workings.

Old-timers can hardly believe what they see today. The early miners held a hand drill with a fishtail bit on one end and a chisel on the other, to drill into the rock or coal face. What would he think of the huge rotary drills on the surface today - capable of drilling 9-inch and 10-inch holes through solid bedrock at speeds in excess of one foot a minute, up to 72 feel deep? How about that scoop he used . . . compared to the 35 cubic yard "big dipper" of a Marion 7800? There is quite a contrast to the mine buddy of years ago and the 65 and 85 ton trucks we meet at the raw coal pits today.

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