Penn After Coal

Pennsylvania communities cope with life after mining
By JEFF LESTER, Senior Writer November 16, 2004

Big Stone Gap and Appalachia grew rapidly from the 1890s through the 1950s as two very different coal company towns. The Gap was home for many management employees from Stonega Coke & Coal Co. and, later, Westmoreland Coal Co., while Appalachia was the hub of activity for thousands of unionized miners.

Nearly 10 years after Westmoreland shut down its Virginia operations, Big Stone Gap, Appalachia and nearby communities are still redefining their identities.

The Leisenring family of Pennsylvania ran coal companies for five generations until the late 1980s. But long before their influence vanished from Southwest Virginia, changing market conditions forced the Leisenrings to pull out of the Pennsylvania communities where they had mined beginning in the 1830s.

Here's how three of those communities coped with life after coal mining:

* Jim Thorpe, Penn. was called Mauch Chunk, a native American phrase meaning "bear mountain," until the early 1950s.

Mauch Chunk and surrounding communities in northeast Pennsylvania became the center of the coal mining universe in the 1820s, when entrepreneurs began shipping anthracite coal downriver to Philadelphia. That's where John Leisenring became a canal engineer in 1836 and soon got involved in mining.

After the Civil War, the anthracite fields got competition from bituminous coal in western Pennsylvania. Mauch Chunk remained a productive mining area until the Great Depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash.

By the early 1950s, a local newspaper editor had started a community development fund into which citizens each paid 5 cents a week.

Not long afterward, the widow of legendary native American athlete Jim Thorpe was dissatisfied when his native Oklahoma failed to erect a suitable monument for him. Though Thorpe had never lived in Mauch Chunk, town officials saw a tourism opportunity and agreed to make Mauch Chunk his final resting place, going so far as to change the town's name.

Visitors to Jim Thorpe can still tour a restored Victorian historical district downtown. There, they can see the office building for the first major coal firm, Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co.

Tourists can also walk through the mansion of Asa Packer, once the richest man in America (information: 570/325-3229).

The film "The Molly Maguires," starring Sean Connery, was partly filmed nearby in the county jail. It chronicled the exploits of militant Irish miners who used violence to protest poor working conditions in the 1870s.

Tourists can visit the jail, where Alexander Campbell, a member of the Molly Maguires, awaited his hanging for murder (information: 570/325-5259).

Visitors can also ride a replica of the switchback railroad that entrepreneur Joshia White built to transport coal from the mines to the canal system that floated coal to the cities (information: 570/325-4606, or www.railtours-inc.com).

Further, tourists can see working models of the canal locks and the railroad at the Mauch Chunk Museum & Cultural Center (information: www.mauchchunkmuseum.com).

Jim Thorpe is about 30 miles north of Allentown. Take Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 34 to route 209.

* Eckley, Penn., a town created by the Leisenring coal group in 1854, survives as Eckley Miners' Village. The town housed 1,500 miners and their families at its peak in the 1880s, but now is home to a handful of families.

Eckley was the main setting for filming of "The Molly Maguires," and the film crew did much to restore the community's 19th-century appearance.

Visitors can see about 40 miners' homes from the 1880s, 1890s and 1940s, along with churches, a company doctor's office and a company store (information: 570/636-2070, or www.eckleyminers.org).

Eckley is about 20 miles south of Wilkes-Barre, off route 940 between Interstate 81 and the turnpike.

* Connellsville, Penn. and nearby Leisenring, Penn. were hubs of activity by Westmoreland, the Leisenring group and several other bituminous operations in the western part of the state, but mining there declined in the 1950s.

The Leisenring group competed fiercely with Henry Clay Frick, the partner of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, for control of the coking coal market around Connellsville until 1889, when Ned Leisenring sold out to Frick and began concentrating on the Virginia coalfields.

Connellsville weathered the decline of mining better than many communities because it had a long tradition of fostering other industries, ranging from boat building to glass production.

Visitors can still see homes from the era of 19th century mining and coke production, and they can take walking tours of downtown Connellsville, including the town's History Complex.

In Leisenring, tourists can still see the Leisenring company store.

Also, tourists can camp along the nearby Youghiogheny River at River's Edge Family Campground, where they can tour the ruins of a massive coking facility owned by Frick (information: 724/628-4880).

Connellsville and Leisenring are about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh. Take the Pennsylvania Turnpike west to route 119 and follow it south about 12 miles.

The End