Founded in 1851, the Short Mountain Coal Company grew rapidly during the Civil War in association with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
A 1919 history of the Short Mountain Coal Company – Wiconisco Township
Captain Richard Budd – Civil War veteran and pioneer of Williamstown
Budd served during the Civil War and later became a prominent citizen in Dauphin County's largest mining community.
Grievances of Williamstown miners against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company – 1886
"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.
Henry Keiser’s ‘reminisicences’ of Lykens and Wiconisco before the Civil War
In May 1927, Henry Keiser described the Coal Region towns where he grew up as they looked in the 1850s.
Baseball game settled score between colliery engineers in Williams Valley
In July 1906, engineers from rival coal mines played for bragging rights in northern Dauphin County.
Fire in 1900 spelled doom for a newspaper in Lykens
Fire swept through Lykens in December 1900 and destroyed the offices of the town's oldest newspaper
Interview with a survivor of the 1904 Williamstown Colliery Disaster
David Watkeys was pulled unconscious from the Williamstown Tunnel on May 25, 1904. He survived to tell his story.
The Williamstown Colliery Disaster of 1904
10 miners were killed when toxic gas from a locomotive filled Williamstown Tunnel on May 25, 1904
Video: A short history of Williamstown Tunnel in northern Dauphin County
Our first Facebook Live video gives a short history of Williamstown Tunnel at the southwestern border of the Coal Region
“A first-class breaker” – Photographs of Williamstown Colliery in the 1860s
Isaac Kunkel photographed the Williamstown Colliery in 1860s and documented the birth of a new town.
