On November 30, 1871, Lykens quietly marked Thanksgiving: businesses closed; Lutheran and Episcopal services thinly attended while railroads and collieries worked. Read the full story of a 19th century Thanksgiving in a mining town.
A photograph by Isaac Kunkel shows the mining community of Lykens, Pennsylvania in the years after the Civil War. The image is among the earliest taken of this northern Dauphin County community. Read the full story.
Step back to 1870s Millersburg, PA with a rare photograph of the Summit Branch Hotel and railroad depot at the junction of the Northern Central and Lykens Valley lines. Read the full story.
Discover a rare photograph capturing locomotive “George P. Upton” hauling anthracite along the Lykens Valley Railroad. Explore Bear Gap’s bustling mines, the route to Millersburg, and how Lykens Valley coal powered East Coast cities. Read the full story.
An 1860s photograph shows the inclined plane at Wiconsico that carried loaded coal cars down to the main line of the Lykens Valley Railroad.
Today, it doesn’t look like much. A forked path in the woods on State Game Lands in northern Dauphin County. Not much else. We are looking west, the trail on the left headed toward the village of Wiconisco and the right headed one mile to the long forgotten Big Lick Colliery. Behind us, the trail … Continue reading A walk to the long abandoned rail junction on Big Lick Mountain | Dauphin County, PA
This newly acquired postcard shows Millersburg, Pennsylvania and the wide Susquehanna River as it winds through the mountains.
In 1834 and 1835, a scientist named Constantine Samuel Rafinesque traveled widely through Pennsylvania in order to document the geology and biology of the Keystone State. In the spring of 1835, the Turkish-born polymath traveled north from Harrisburg aboard canal boats alongside the Susquehanna River to Millersburg. In his book, A Life of Travels, Rafinesque details … Continue reading An 1835 visit to the mines at Wiconisco Township
In 1831, a land sale took place at a coffee house in Philadelphia that launched coal mining operations in northern Dauphin County.
In May 1927, Henry Keiser described the Coal Region towns where he grew up as they looked in the 1850s.