The Anthracite Cultural Board

01/13/2026

Anthracite Mining Heritage Month
January 2026 Schedule of Events

This was pulled from the following webpage, with a few events added that are missing on the calendar. Our organization is not coordinating the list of events. For most up to date information, see the Anthracite Museum page here. https://www.anthracitemuseum.org/amhm/

Thurs. 15 Jan.
Civil War: The Homefront in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region
Event Location: Alvernia University – Pottsville College Towne, Pottsville, Penna.
Time: 6–7 PM

Sat. 17 Jan.
Movies in the Mines – Knox Mine Disaster Documentary (Tickets Required, Sold Out)
Hosted by the Underground Miners
Event Location: Brooks Mine, Scranton, Penna.
Showings: 12 Noon and 3 PM

Sun. 18 Jan.
Anthracite Photography with Michael Froio
Event Location: National Museum of Industrial History, Bethlehem, Penna.
Time: 1–2 PM

Tues. 20 Jan.
Huber Breaker Preservation Society Presentation
Event Location: St. Leo the Great Church Hall, Ashley, Penna.
Time: 6–9 PM

Thurs. 22 Jan.
From the Mines to Rails
Event Location: First Welsh Baptist Church, Plymouth, Penna.
Time: 6:30–7:30 PM

Fri. 23 Jan.
Meet the Author – Lorena Beniquez – Lost Coal Country of Northeastern Pennsylvania
Event Location: LCHS Museum, Wilkes-Barre, Penna.
Time: 7–8:30 PM

Sat. 24 Jan.
Denchy C.O.A.L. Company Jewelry / Fashion Accessories
Anthracite Mining Heritage Month Trunk Show & Sale
(All proceeds will be donated to the Underground Miners Group)
Event Location: Old & Brew, Main St., Peckville, Penna.
Time: 11 AM–2 PM
Free and open to the public

Sat. 24 Jan.
Anthracite Insurgents
Event Location: National Museum of Industrial History, Bethlehem, Penna.
Time: 1–2 PM

Sat. 24 Jan.
The Annual Knox Mine Disaster Commemoration
Event Location: Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton, Penna.
Time: 2–4 PM

Sun. 25 Jan.
Knox Mine Disaster Annual Memorial Mass, Commemoration, and Walk
Event Locations: Pittston, Penna.
(See the A.H.M. website for exact times and locations for this coordinated event)

Tues. 27 Jan.
Anthracite Labor History
Event Location: Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton, Penna.
Time: 6:30–8 PM

Thurs. 29 Jan.
The Annual Msgr. John J. Curran Lecture and Book Prize
Event Location: King’s College (Burke Auditorium), Wilkes-Barre, Penna.
Time: 6:30–8 PM

Fri. 30 Jan.
Slopes, Shafts and Planes – The Mechanics of Mining
With Mining Engineer Justin Emershaw
Event Location: Trinity Episcopal Church, corner of Montgomery Ave. and Spring St., West Pittston
(Hosted by the West Pittston Historical Society)
Time: 6:30 PM

Fri. 30 Jan.
The History of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company: 154 Years of Famous “Reading” Anthracite
Event Location: Eckley Miners Village Auditorium, Weatherly, Penna.
Time: 6–7 PM

Sat. 31 Jan.
Breaker Boys
Event Location: Lackawanna Historical Society / Catlin House, Scranton, Penna.
Time: 2–4 PM

Sat. 31 Jan.
David A. Lucas – Underground Anthracite Miner Movies
Event Location: Pine Grove Movie Theatre, Pine Grove, Penna.
Time: 2–3:30 PM

06/29/2025

➡ On June 28, 1896, a cave-in at the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Colliery in Pittston, Pa., claimed the lives of 58 miners, triggering an investigation. Many of the victims of the disaster were Irish and Lithuanian immigrants. In June 1992, PHMC dedicated a historical maker that commemorates the tragedy.

06/18/2025

while working for Office of Surface Mines(OSM) in 2008 Bob and Eric got to tour a working Anthracite Coal Breaker Hudson Anthracite and luckily brought along...

02/04/2025

An 1887 photo of the Pennsylvania Railroad turntable and rail yard at Mount Carbon, PA. This view is looking north toward Pottsville. I'm told there are still a few foundations from the homes on the hillside to the right, which was a small patch town called Crow Hill. If you look closely, I think that may be the Henry Clay statue in the far left rear of photo.

01/17/2025

PHMC is marking by spotlighting the history of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum, one of the most popular stops along the Pennsylvania Trails of History. These museum videos tell the story of the people who set down roots in the coal fields. ➡ https://bit.ly/40BAjLJ

12/17/2024

"Where now stands the large and prosperous town of Williamstown, with the largest coal breaker and the most, productive colliery in the country, within my recollection there was but a single little log house, with chimney outside made of wood.

Now there is a population of nearly two thousand souls, with churches, schoolhouses, stores, spacious hotels, handsome brick buildings, and comfortable homes for all.

We see the inhabitants of the valley now, instead of undergoing the labor of climbing the mountains cutting the white pine to make shingles, with its small remuneration, and that after much labor in transporting them to Gratz, Berrysburg or some other neighboring place – instead of that, we behold them now entering the bowels of the earth, with their lamps attached to their caps as pathfinders of the way, and there converting the treasure hidden for centuries into a much sought after fuel, with labor commanding a reward commensurate with the danger and hardships expended."

- Richard Nolen, 1865

(Photograph: The large coal breaker at the Williamstown Colliery in northern Dauphin County in the late 1860s, Williamstown Historical Society)

11/28/2024

Step into the Pennsylvania Coal Region of the 1890s through the eyes of one of America’s greatest writers, Stephen Crane.

In 1894, Crane visited Northeastern Pennsylvania and captured the haunting essence of life and labor in the anthracite mines.

His vivid descriptions bring the coal breakers to life as towering, smoke-belching “monsters” that consumed the landscape and shaped the lives of the miners who toiled beneath them.

Crane wrote in 1894:

“The ‘breakers’ squatted upon the hillsides and in the valley like enormous preying monsters, eating of the sunshine, the grass, the green leaves.

The smoke from their nostrils had ravaged the air of coolness and fragrance. All that remained of vegetation looked dark, miserable, half-strangled.

Along the summit line of the mountain a few unhappy trees were etched upon the clouds. Overhead stretched a sky of imperial blue, incredibly far away from the sombre land.

The Breaker

We approached the colliery over paths of coal dust that wound among the switches. A ‘breaker’ loomed above us, a huge and towering frame of blackened wood.

It ended in a little curious peak, and upon its sides there was a profusion of windows appearing at strange and unexpected points.

Through occasional doors one could see the flash of whirring machinery. Men with wondrously blackened faces and garments came forth from it.

The sole glitter upon their persons was at their hats, where the little tin lamps were carried. They went stolidly along, some swinging lunch-pails carelessly; but the marks upon them of their forbidding and mystic calling fascinated our new eyes until they passed from sight.

They were symbols of a grim, strange war that was being waged in the sunless depths of the earth.”

10/29/2024

10/28/2024

October 25, 2018. Jack Kehoe's observation of 250 years of Anthracite