In December 1873, a 4,000 foot tunnel was completed through Big Lick Mountain in Dauphin County. Williamstown Tunnel opened up Bear Valley for profitable coal mining.
The completion of Williamstown Tunnel – 1873

In December 1873, a 4,000 foot tunnel was completed through Big Lick Mountain in Dauphin County. Williamstown Tunnel opened up Bear Valley for profitable coal mining.
Budd served during the Civil War and later became a prominent citizen in Dauphin County's largest mining community.
"We are men and all we ask is to be treated as such," wrote the miners in a public letter published during their 1886 strike.
David Watkeys was pulled unconscious from the Williamstown Tunnel on May 25, 1904. He survived to tell his story.
10 miners were killed when toxic gas from a locomotive filled Williamstown Tunnel on May 25, 1904
Our first Facebook Live video gives a short history of Williamstown Tunnel at the southwestern border of the Coal Region
Isaac Kunkel photographed the Williamstown Colliery in 1860s and documented the birth of a new town.
A newspaper clipping from 1872 takes us into a long-demolished building at the heart of Williamstown, PA.
A modern walk to the places that saw the worst of the suffering during the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak.
Photographs taken on Memorial Day 1907 in Williamstown, Pennsylvania show a community commemorating its war dead.