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Coal Castles – Richardson Colliery (1845-1913)

A photograph taken on May 2, 1913 of colliery coal sample inspectors and chemists testing coal from the breaker before shipping to market.

From a series of articles that appeared in the Pottsville Republican and Herald in 1998:

The Richardson Colliery was at Glen Carbon on the north side of the Heckscherville Valley.

The original opening was a water-level tunnel driven north 225 feet through dirt and rock to a leader of coal from which tunnels were driven north and south to the Skidmore and Mammoth veins by Stanton & Beal in 1845 and mined until 1852.

In 1852, McFarland & Vierner succeeded it and sank the slope 300 feet on the South Dip of the Crosly Top Split of the Mammoth Vein in 1855.  It mined the slope gangways to 1866, when a squeeze occurred, closing the slope and suspending the colliery.

In 1866, John Lucas & Company leased the colliery and sank a new slope west of the old slope and later extended it 900 feet to the lower level.  It reopened the old slope as a pump slope and drove a tunnel across the basin, operating the colliery until 1873, when the pump slope was destroyed by fire.

In 1872, the Oakdale Coal and Mining Company succeeded Lucas & Company and operated to 1874, when it was succeeded by Richardson & Company which operated until 1875.

In 1875, the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company purchased the colliery and drove tunnels across the basin.

In 1892, it sank the Middle Spilt Tender Slope to the same elevation as the hoisting slope.  The Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company continued mining on an extensive scale until 1902, when a strike of the miners occurred and the colliery was abandoned.

In 1913, the company drove a water-level tunnel north in the Broad Mountain to the jugular basin and operated it for several years, preparing the coal at the Pine Knot Breaker.

The total shipment of coal from Richardson Colliery was 2,295,028 tons and total capital invested in 1852 was $54,000.

_______________________________________________

Article by Frank Blase, Historian, Reading Anthracite Company Historical Library, Pottsville Republican & Herald, February 21, 1998. Obtained from Newspapers.com.

Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.

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