A ghost at the Luke Fidler Colliery in Shamokin | 1900

“According to a lot of foreign miners, the wraith of Frank Broderick, an Austro-Hungarian, haunts Luke Fidler shaft, and some of them refuse to work in or near the part of the mine in which he lost his life...” A Shamokin newspaper reported this ghost story in 1900, and it captures the dread that followed miners down into Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal mines. Read the full story.

Polish immigrants arrive in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania | A Coal Region scene from 1893

In May 1893, thirty Polish immigrants stepped off a train in Shenandoah and into a new life in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region. A short newspaper account captures the confusion, emotion, and quiet reunions that followed. It is a small moment in a much larger story of migration that reshaped the region. Read the full story.