The record · hard-coal country
The history of hard-coal country.
Schuylkill Hub's sourced collection for Pottsville and Schuylkill County — historic maps, the peoples who settled here, biographies, monuments, buildings, and the newspapers that chronicled them. History pages cite and deep-link their sources.
Explore the record
Nine ways into the county's past.
Browse the archive by kind — or read the long-form histories below.
The archive
Maps
Deep-zoom historic maps of the county — 197 in the archive.
Open the map archive → 02Who settled here
Cultures & peoples
16 ethnic-group profiles and a census spine.
Read the profiles → 03How the county talks
Coal Region glossary
75 Coal Region terms — food, mine and place, everyday talk.
Look up a term → 04The people
Biographies
41 sourced biographical sketches, A–Z.
Browse biographies → 05In bronze & stone
Monuments
The county's memorials, mapped and dated.
See the monuments → 06Landmarks
Buildings
Theaters, banks, firehouses, schools & more — 34 histories.
Tour the buildings → 07The press
Historic newspapers
41 papers and stations — the immigrant, labor & town press.
Read the press history → 08Trace a family
Genealogy
The surname index (16) and the research desk.
Start researching → 09How we know
Sources
The public-domain corpora behind every cited claim.
See the sources →The long reads
The stories, told in full.
Deep, source-anchored histories of the people and forces that shaped the region.
Anthracite coal in Pennsylvania — the Schuylkill County and Southern Field story
Anthracite is hard coal — under 10% volatile matter. ~95% of US reserves are in Pennsylvania, across four fields including the Southern Field at Pottsville.
Read →Before Pottsville: the pioneer settlers around Pott's furnace
The earliest roster of the families around John Pott's furnace — a few farms, a mountain tavern, a carpenter's mill — as I. Daniel Rupp printed it in 1845.
Read →Brewing in Schuylkill County — Yuengling, Kaier's, Mount Carbon, and the coal-town breweries
Schuylkill County has brewed its own beer since 1829 — Yuengling, Kaier's of Mahanoy City, Mount Carbon's Bavarian — and a craft generation brews on.
Read →Frankie's Smoke Shop, Pottsville (1938–1992)
Frankie's Smoke Shop, a downtown Pottsville newsstand run by Frank Tassone from 1938 until arson destroyed it in 1992. Both of its addresses are parking today.
Read →Hidden Creek: A History of the Schuylkill River to 1950
The history of the Schuylkill River — Dutch for "hidden creek": Lenape waters, the 1815 canal, coal silt, the 1945–51 cleanup, and the county the river made.
Read →Mahantongo Valley folk art — painted furniture and fraktur
The Mahantongo Valley, astride the Schuylkill–Northumberland county line, painted chests and cupboards like fraktur (1798–1841) — now prized American folk art.
Read →Schuylkill Community Action
Schuylkill County's Community Action Agency — founded in Pottsville in 1965 as the Economic Opportunity Cabinet, the county's anti-poverty agency today.
Read →Teaberry — the wintergreen flavor and its Schuylkill County roots
Teaberry is the wintergreen flavor of a native mountain plant, with deep Schuylkill County roots in berry-gathering, place-names, candy, and ice cream.
Read →The Jewish Community of Pottsville
Pottsville's Jewish community in Schuylkill County — merchants, not miners — from Congregation Oheb Zedeck (1856) to the Phillips-Van Heusen story.
Read →The Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region
The Molly Maguires were an Irish-American secret society active in Pennsylvania's anthracite region from the 1860s to the 1870s. Twenty members were executed.
Read →The Pottsville Police Department — from the borough high constable to the Bureau of Police
Pottsville has kept the peace since 1828 — a high constable, borough watchmen, a Goforth Street lock-up, the city force of 1914, and today's Bureau of Police.
Read →The Salvation Army in Schuylkill County
The Salvation Army reached Schuylkill County in 1885 — Shenandoah's opera-house campaign, then Pottsville's women-led corps of 1886, today on Sanderson Street.
Read →The School Districts of Schuylkill County
How Schuylkill County came to have 12 school districts — the 1834 free-school fight, the jointure era, and the Act 561/299 reorganization of July 1, 1966.
Read →The Schuylkill County draft resistance of October 1862
In October 1862, armed Schuylkill County miners — Cass Township at the center — shut collieries and stopped a draftee train; it ended in days, without troops.
Read →The Schuylkill County Historical Society
Schuylkill County's official historical society — organized at a Pottsville Y.M.C.A. in 1903, chartered that September, a county museum and library today.
Read →U.S. anthracite production peak — 1917
U.S. anthracite production peaked in 1917 at 99.67 million short tons (per USGS), almost all of it from Pennsylvania's four anthracite fields.
Read →Yuengling — America's oldest operating brewery, Pottsville, Pennsylvania (founded 1829)
D. G. Yuengling & Son was founded in 1829 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and is the oldest continuously operating brewery in the United States.
Read →Keep exploring
More ways into the county.
The other five, each a click from here.
What's on
Events
Markets, festivals, fire-company fundraisers, and what the historical society has on this week — gathered from every town in the county.
Browse what's on → 02Open for business
Directory
The shops, trades, and services that run the county — listed by town, so you can find what's near you and who's still open.
Find a business → 03The table
Food
Diners, taverns, bakeries, and the places that have fed the patch towns for generations — plus where to find a good bologna and pierogi, and the recipes to cook them at home.
Find a table → 04The land
Outdoor Life
State parks, game lands, stocked trout streams, and the ridgeline trails of the anthracite country — where to hike, camp, fish, and get outside.
Get outside → 05Town by town
Towns
Every borough and the city of Pottsville — each with a page pulling together the events, food, businesses, and history that town has.
Explore the towns →From the archive
Historic maps and photographs from the Schuylkill Hub archive, each available as an archival print.
How we keep the record
Sourced, dated, and deep-linked.
History pages cite and deep-link their sources — public-domain corpora and authoritative records, with claims verified per entity. Where a fact isn't certain, we leave it out.
Browse the sources