This photograph shows what is likely a newly constructed breaker at the Sugar Notch Colliery just southwest of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in the years after the Civil War.
Below is a vivid description of the Luzerne County mining operation from an 1873 guidebook to the Lehigh Valley Railroad:
Sugar Notch
So called from the collieries formerly owned by Parrish and Thomas, which, with uniformly painted breakers and dwellings, and the neat character of the latter, present altogether a much better appearance than the generality of such improvements.
These works now belong to the Wilkes-Barre Coal and Iron Company and comprise two breakers, one slope, one shaft, and a tunnel 1500 feet in length, the longest in the Wyoming Valley. The combined capacity of the breakers is 1500 tons per day.
When the new breaker, now in course of erection, is running, 1000 men and boys will find employment here. There is quite a succession of other collieries from this point to Wilkes-Barre…
Featured Image: Luzerne County Historical Society via University of Portsmouth
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My grandfather worked in #9. He was killed in a mining accident in March 1955