In 1877, a mine fire in Lykens, PA did more than just rage out of control underground. It threw 800 men out of work, left families destitute, and occurred amid one of the most explosive years in American labor history. This new video explores the human cost of disaster in the Coal Region. Watch the Video.
On New Year’s Day 1877, fire erupted deep inside the Short Mountain Colliery and would not be easily contained. It burned for months, idled hundreds of miners, and shook the communities of Lykens and Wiconisco during a national depression. This new video traces the disaster and its aftermath. Watch the video.
In May 1871, fire swept Pittston’s Knight Shaft. Eleven-year-old mule driver Martin Crahan turned back from safety to warn miners, was refused behind their barricade, and chose to die beside his teams. Nineteen others perished. A poem immortalized his courage in the face of a disaster similar to one that ravaged Avondale, PA two years earlier. Read the full story.
For decades, a slow-burning fire smoldered beneath a massive culm pile on Big Lick Mountain in Williamstown, Pennsylvania, sending sulfurous smoke over the town. In the 1940s, efforts began to reclaim the site - hauling coal from the “Burning Banks” and battling the underground blaze that wouldn’t die until the 1970s. Read the full story.
A 1982 PBS documentary reveals how a routine trash-burning ignited an unstoppable mine fire beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. Witness the fierce debates over the town’s future, the heartache of evacuations, and the haunting remnants that remain. Read the full story.
In December 1871, a devastating fire nearly claimed lives at the Kalmia Colliery in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Flames swept through the breaker, trapping miners and sparking rumors of arson by the Molly Maguires in this turbulent era of coal industry violence in Pennsylvania history. Read the Full Story.
Discover the tragic 1858 incident where toxic gases from a burning coal mine claimed the lives of two mining officials in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. Explore this early example of mine fires in the anthracite coal fields, highlighting the dangers miners faced and the environmental challenges of the era. Read the full story.
A travel writer made a detailed entry about Tamaqua, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1862.
An August 1962 news report documents the early efforts to squelch an escalating mine fire at Centralia, Pennsylvania.
A look at some of the responses to our post about Centralia and its possible future