Knox Mine Disaster

If you noticed the notation in the Trains Magazine map of the Scranton area concerning the "Knox Mine Disaster", here's some information on just what this calamity was.

The Erie Lackawanna List had a posting today of a link to the official report on the Knox Mine Disaster, which was essentially the last nail in the coffin for the Anthracite mining operations in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area:

http://www.msha.gov/District/Dist_01/Re ... /cover.htm

WOW!!!!

I have been driving through Scranton/Wilkes Barre quite a bit recently, on my way between State College and Hartford, CT.

Are there any active anthracite operations in the area today? I would assume they would be above ground strip operations, as the network of underground mines is flooded from Knox.

This is an interesting site as well...

http://www.undergroundminers.com/

BWP

Brooks, there are still a few isolated examples of "deep" or "shaft" anthracite mining in Northeastern and East Central Pennsylvania, but most of them are well south of I-80, in the Tremont/Hegins area of Schuylkill County.

There is one active strip mine, with a monster dragline, at Jeddo, to the northeasrt of Hazleton. To get there going east, leave I-80 at the Hazleton exit, and follow route 309 south to the intersection with Penna route 940 near the Church Hill Mall. Route 940 will lead you east for about 5 miles toi jeddo, about a mile before the more sizeable community of Freeland, The mine will be on your right. You can then continure to follow route 940 east, and rejoin Interstate 80 at White Haven.

The last deep mining in the northern anthracite field was at Wanamie, near Glen Lyon and Nanticoke. It ended around 1874, and was famous for its saddle-tank steam "lokie".

The flooding of the mines after the Knox disaster has, like the burning of the New Haven's Poughkeepsie bridge, taken on some of the status of an urban legend, with occasional conspiracy therories. But the fact remains that the ill-advised strike of 1925 provided a huge impetus for the conversion to oil in many markets, and the temporary slowing of this trend during the depths of the Depression actually benefited the region, which had alrady contracted to a point where little adfditional belt-tightening took place.