Hardcoal Chronicles 40th
1973 - 2013
The HARDCOAL REGION
Alternately called the “Anthracite Region” or “Hardcoal Region” or just “Coal Region” to locals,
Northeastern Pennsylvania is America's Black Diamond ~ A cultural region named for its geology:
Anthracite Coal. Our coal was first documented during surveys of the Connecticut Company's 1662
Sea-to-Sea land grant from Charles II, King of England. He also erroneously granted the same area
to William Penn, who later established the colony of Pennsylvania (“Penn's Woodland”) in 1681.
For over 200 years, Anthracite mining has occurred in an approximately 500 square-mile area fully
within the northeastern quarter of Pennsylvania, but its cultural influence has dominated almost all of
eastern Pennsylvania and tangential areas of New York and New Jersey. Culturally, historically, and
economically, the Coal Region directly includes the industrial Lehigh Valley, Slate and Cement Belts,
and the Pennsylvania German farmland, famous with the tourists for its “Old Order” religious sects.
In the north, Binghamton and the eastern “Southern Tier” of New York belongs to the Coal Region,
as does the adjacent Pocono Mountains and northwestern New Jersey. Finally, the region extends
west into central Pennsylvania's Broad Top Coal Field, a semi-Anthracite geologic outlier.
Although largely forgotten today, nationally, Anthracite's economic, skilled labor, technological,
investment, and political influence was immense, and in an extrapolated sense continues to benefit
this country to this day. Well over three million Americans are culturally Anthracite; and many, many
more are now generations removed and unaware of their ancestral connections to us here in the Coal Region.
A1 Title plate
A2 Frontispiece
A3 Dedicatory
A4 Panels Intro
A5 The Region
A6 Overview
A7 Names & Titles
A8 Orientation
A9 Image Roster
A10 Farther Afield
A11 Portfolios
A12 Chronology
A13 thecoalman.com
Presentation
C1 Metamorphic
C2 Mine Pits A
C3 Coal Holes
C4 Deep Mining
C5 Breakers
D1 People
D2 Pitch Black
D3 Coal Delivery
D4 PA Bituminous
D5 Soft Coal
D6 Mine Pits B
D7 Coaling Towers
E1 Coal Trains
E2 Coal Cars
E3 Non-Coal RR
E4 Car Shots
F1 Night Images
F2 Jim Lukens Art
F3 Anthracite Racing
F4 Racing Reunion
Culmination
H1 Linking Up
H2 Homecoming
H3 Photographers
H4 “LAST CALL !”
H5 “Last Call” continued
K1 Acknowledgements
K2 Thank You
K3 Honorees
K4 Ambassador
K5 Silver Images
K6 Framers
K7 Dan's Camera
K8 Rob-Win Press
K9 Lew Graver
K10 Avanti Cigars
N1 “Year in the Life”
N2 The Work in 2011
N3 Continuity
N4 “Parting Shot”
Information
Q1 Calendar
Q2 Show Venues
Q3 Visitors Welcome
Q4 Links
Q5 “On Hold”
Q6 Copyright Notice
Q7 Gifting of Images
Q8 Site Update
R1 Return