A photo of the construction of the pulverizing mill of the Lykens Power Plant, Short Mountain Colliery, Lykens Valley Coal Company, Bear Gap, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, taken on 23 July 1921. The mill was located just south of the power plant.
The view is looking southeast. Short Mountain rises behind the construction (at right). Berry Mountain can be seen in the distance (at left). The conveyor system, which is shown in this picture prior to being enclosed in its housing, moved the milled fuel over a trestle to the power plant where it was burned and converted to electrical power.
The purpose of the mill was to refine the culm into a usable fuel for the power plant. A trestle was used to move the coal from the culm or tailings bank which was located just north of Lykens. The bank was said to contain more than two-and-a-half million tons of potential fuel, which could be used by the power plant, but was generally unsuitable for the market. Rather than burn usable, marketable coal to generate steam power for the colliery, the operators decided to construct an electrical power plant which would burn the refuse at the site, thus creating a cheaper form of energy. The operation was successful in that the electricity generated was more than enough to power the colliery. Electrical supply lines were strung through the gap and over the mountain as far as the Williamstown collieries supplying them with electrical power and the surplus generated was enough to provide power for Lykens and Wiconisco.
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