On a recent drive through Pottsville, PA, I stopped to photograph the last remnant of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad’s original passenger depot – the brick head house built in 1851 that once anchored the city’s early rail network.

This modest structure once welcomed thousands. Passengers waited under long covered platforms attached to the building, while ticket agents and freight handlers kept the depot humming inside.

But one moment in its history stands far above the rest.

A decade after it opened, this depot became the departure point for the Washington Artillerists and the National Light Infantry – Pottsville’s militia companies rushing to the front at the very start of the Civil War.

They left here on April 17, 1861, just five days after the first shots at Fort Sumter and became known as the “First Defenders.”

The Pottsville Miners’ Journal captured that scene as the city bid farewell to its citizen-soldiers:

“At the depot, the crowd was immense and it was almost impossible to force your way through it. The tops of the passenger and freight cars, the roofs of the depot and neighboring houses, were black with spectators.

Never had so great a concourse assembled on any one occasion before in Pottsville.”

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Read more about Pottsville’s storied history

The “Great Compromiser” in the Coal Region | Pottsville’s Henry Clay Monument

Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1833 | A growing coal town

“Saturday night in Pottsville” | Scenes from 1845

A ghost story from Pottsville, Pennsylvania | 1865

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