COAL AND RAILROADS TAKE OVER

Beginning in the early 1860s, river rafting and logging found a new rival in coal as a contributor to Clearfield County’s economic, ethnic and social life. Initially, in the early 1800s, coal was shipped down the West Branch in arks. By the 1860s, however, methods were modernized when eastern capital­ists and the railroads moved into the county to mine and transport coal from the region for use in steamships, locomotives, steel mills and other in­dustries.

The first mines opened in the Philipsburg (Centre County), Osceola Mills and Houtzdale areas, where coal averaging four and one-half feet in thickness and singularly free of sul­phur was found. By 1900 and later, coal mining had spread to virtually all parts of the county with whole new communities developing by the peak year of 1918. Some survive today­ – others died when the coal veins were exhausted.

Coal changed Clearfield County’s lifestyle; fortunes were made and lost in mining operations. One inevitable development stemming from these mining operations was the unioniza­tion of workers by the United Mine Workers of America. Due to the heavy strength of unionized mine workers in the county, the UMW District 2 headquarters was located in Clearfield for many years, until the 1950s.

The dominance of coal continues today, but in a different way. Shortly before World War II, the new method of surface or open pit mining was in­troduced and today has surpassed in importance the one-time dominant “deep mine” method. In 1979, Clear­field County ranked first in Pennsyl­vania in tonnage produced by the surface mining technique.

It was no coincidence that the development of coal mining was matched by the entrance of railroads into the county, further opening this north-central “wilderness” to the east and west. Coal was the goal of the rail roads as they came to Clearfield County, and come they did – from the south, the east, the north and the west – to gain the rich coal traffic, along with passenger and other freight business.

The Pennsylvania was the first rail­road to arrive, reaching Clearfield Borough in January 1869. The Allegheny Valley Railroad was next, con­necting DuBois with Pittsburgh in 1874. In 1883-84, it was the New York Central which breached the county from the east, followed by the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh. reach­ing DuBois from New York State. Ten years later a branch line was run into Clearfield and the company construc­ted big car repair shops in DuBois. Other railroads seeking the coal of Clearfield County included the Buffalo & Susquehanna and the Erie from the north, and the Pittsburgh, Shawmut and Northern from the west.

All told, some twenty-three rail­roads by different names operated in the county in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most eventually consolidated with the Baltimore & Ohio, New York Central and Pennsylvania, while others like the B.&S. disappeared completely. Today, lines have been further con­solidated into Conrail and the B.&0.-Chesapeake & Ohio.

To learn more about coal in Clearfield County visit the Coalport Area Coal Museum
https://www.visitclearfieldcounty.org/museum_history_coalport_museum

Written by George Scott in the County Feature category and the Winter 1981 issue