Anthracite Heritage Foundation

04/12/2026

Illinois

After meeting its fundraising goal, Waltonville's Miners Memorial moves toward completion, with work on a tribute wall and paver area restarting as warm weather returns.

03/14/2026

https://www.wkok.com/624593-2/

KULPMONT — A presentation featuring historic photos of the Anthracite coal region will be held next week in Kulpmont. Organizers say the program will highlight images from Centralia, Shamokin, Mount Carmel, and surrounding communities. The Shamokin Creek Restoration Alliance says photographer Mike...

03/13/2026

03/12/2026

03/12/2026

Export seeks funding to create historical mine area, trail connection
(NOT ANTHRACITE, BUT WE SHOULD BE DOING MORE TO SAVE WHAT'S LEFT)

https://community.triblive.com/c/murrysville-star/news/3994836

03/12/2026

ANTHRACITE MINING HERITAGE MONTH CONTINUES

KULPMONT — Mike Molesevich will present a photo presentation featuring the anthracite Coal Region 3 p.m. March 21 at the West End Fire Association.

03/10/2026

On This Day In Wilkes-Barre History — March 9, 1891: Ellen Webster Palmer gave the first entertainment to the breaker boys of her newly founded Boys' Industrial Association.

Palmer, wife of former Pennsylvania Attorney General and future Congressman Henry W. Palmer, had been horrified by what she found when she arrived in Wilkes-Barre: young boys working six days a week, up to ten hours a day, sorting coal in the region's breakers with no child labor laws to protect them and no schooling to reach them.

Her answer was the Boys' Industrial Association, launched in 1891. It started with gatherings for entertainment, encouragement, and eventually education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, held first in the Welles Building on Public Square, then on the fourth floor of City Hall. By 1899 the BIA had its own building behind City Hall, on the site where the police station stands today.

Mary L. Trescott, Luzerne County's first female lawyer, served as the organization's treasurer and secretary. Palmer's son Bradley later funded a scholarship to keep boys in school rather than the mines.

Palmer herself wrote: "Every boy represents a human soul; a character forming for eternity… Truly, the wealth of a nation is its children."

She kept at it for 27 years, until her death in 1918. A marble statue of her and two of the boys inscribed "The Friend of the Working Boy” stood for years near the Luzerne County Court House. Damaged by vandals, it has been restored by Baut Studios and will soon be back on her pedestal. Watch for here for the upcoming celebration of Mrs. Palmer's return.

02/28/2026

The scene of a bootleg mine collapse at Mahanoy City, PA on Jan 04, 1933. One miner, Joseph Symborski age 21, was trapped for more than six hours but survived the ordeal. With the sheer number of onlookers standing so close to the edge of the embankment, it’s a miracle more people weren’t injured.

The following is Reading Anthracite’s report on the incident:

“Rescue Force Saves Bootleg Coal Miner”
When Joseph Symborski of Mahanoy City was buried beneath a fall of coal in an illicit mining operation on the mountain side near his home, officials of the Mahanoy City Colliery of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company took charge of the rescue work and extricated him alive after working in the dangerous burrow for more than six hours. Truckloads of timbers and rescue equipment were brought to the scene and a company doctor was sent to the scene to give the man treatment when he was brought out. Symborski escaped with slight injuries. Part of the rescue force is shown at work at the bottom of the pit with a crowd watching the operations. Bags filled with low-grade coal and slate, typical of that supplied by the bootleggers for their illicit traffic with truckers, who pedal it from door-to-door in the large cities, may be seen at the bottom of the excavation. The Pennsylvania state legislature will be asked to extend the provisions of the state mine law to illicit operations of this kind to prevent serious loss of life, which has resulted from bootleg mining during the past year, and to remove this unfair product from Pennsylvania markets, where it masquerades as pure coal, and is sold to unsuspecting buyers.

02/25/2026

Do you know of a person who risked themselves for another?

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission is always accepting nominations for the .

A civilian who voluntarily and knowingly risk death or serious physical injury to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person is eligible for recognition.

To nominate, please go to http://www.carnegiehero.org/nominate/

02/24/2026

https://www.wtae.com/article/a-race-against-time-remembering-michelle-wrights-coverage-of-the-quecreek-mine-rescue/70455422

Nine miners were rescued in the summer of 2002

02/23/2026