A photograph taken around 1932 of the Mahanoy City Colliery, showing breaker, wash house, coal pockets and locomotive house. The tipple is on the right and the rock line is on the left. The colliery was considered to be the best equipped in the region.
From a series of articles that appeared in the Pottsville Republican and Herald in 1997:
The Mahanoy City Colliery was located just north of the Mahanoy City borough line. It was considered the finest equipped colliery in the anthracite region.
The opening was a drift driven west on the South Dip Top Split Mammoth Vein by Hill & Harris in 1860. In 1862, miners drove the water-level mud tunnel to the Mammoth Vein and their first shipment of coal was 12,240 tons.
Hill & Harris continued developing the colliery by sinking the slope 366 feet on the Top Split Mammoth Vein and drove a tunnel south to the Primrose Vein in 1870. The same year they erected a large double breaker with a screen capacity to prepare 600 tons of coal daily.
In 1870, Rommel was admitted to the firm to forma new company of Rommel, Hill & Harris, which operated the colliery until 1873, when it was purchased by the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company. It sank a pump slope east of the hoisting slope and extended the mine workings to other veins of coal by tunnels. Shipments were increased from 54,414 tons in 1869 to 127,006 tons in 1874.
In 1899, the hoisting slope was extended to the third level and the coal was hoisted in gun boats.
In 1903, an inside shaft was sunk to the basin of the Buck Mountain Vein.
In 1911, and electric haulage system was installed in the water level, third level and underground shaft workings, and in 1914 an inside slope was sunk 65 feet across the pitch of the Primrose Vein.
In 1916, the No. 5 inside Buck Mountain Slope was sunk below the eighth level in the Schuylkill section of the colliery.
The colliery breaker was razed in 1936 and the Mahanoy City Colliery consolidated with the Knickerbocker Colliery in 1951. All mining ceased on March 15, 1953.
The total shipment of coal to 1928 from the Mahanoy City Colliery was 10,959,662 tons.
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Article by Frank Blase, Historian, Reading Anthracite Company Historical Library, Pottsville Republican & Herald, July 12, 1997. Obtained from Newspapers.com.
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