david mckeown/staff photos The Schuylkill County Prison, front, center, and Schuylkill County Courthouse dominate downtown Pottsville in this aerial view of the city looking south.
Known for Yuengling, O'Hara, Mootz and The Maroons, the City of Pottsville has been referenced numerous times in the pages of history during its 206-year existence.
Dr. Peter Yasenchak, executive director of the Historical Society of Schuylkill County, which is based in Pottsville, said when he thinks about the city's origins, the Schuylkill Canal immediately comes to mind.
"It was a way to get the coal down the river," he said. "We were blessed with anthracite coal. And that was how it was transported. That was the start of it."
The Schuylkill Navigation Co. was chartered in March 1816. Its aim was to develop a canal from Port Carbon to Philadelphia to transport that coal and other goods from Schuylkill County to the City of Brotherly Love. The Schuylkill Canal opened for business in 1825, a mere three years before Pottsville was officially incorporated as a borough with its own government.
A timber man named Necho Allen was credited with discovering anthracite coal in the area that would become known as Pottsville between 1790 and 1791.
Allen, who lived at Big Spring on the Broad Mountain, accidentally made his discovery by lighting a campfire. It stayed lit all night since it was ignited atop coal, according to "Schuylkill County Chronicles, 2004 and Beyond."
In 1806, John Pott, a native of Oley, Berks County, bought the land on which the city now sits. Centre Turnpike, the current route of Pottsville's Centre Street, was established the same year.
With that in mind, Pott started to lay out the community and subdivided it into lots. The city was born. Prior to that, it was part of Norwegian Township.
Pott died Oct. 23, 1827, at the age of 67. He is buried in Charles Baber Cemetery in Pottsville, according to a Baber cemetery listing authored by Phillip A. Rice in 1990.
Potential for development
"Pottsville has every requisite for becoming a great city, an uninterrupted navigation by the canal to Philadelphia, coal enough to supply the world for thousands of years; and if the resources of the country shall be developed with the same untiring activity by the next, as it has been by the present generation, Pottsville, bold as the assertion may seem, will rival the large cities of the seaboard in population and wealth," Rebecca Caton wrote in the 1837 publication "A Geography of Pennsylvania."
The rise of the anthracite coal industry played a key role in the city's development. For one, it attracted hundreds of immigrant workers to the region. It also spurred the development of industry in the city.
While the canal system came to light in Pottsville in 1816, the railroad came to town in 1848. According to the Zerbey History: "The Reading Railroad was authorized in 1848 to establish a station in Pottsville and to extend its lines, the first depot being at Howard Avenue and Union Street. Prior to that time the railroad had extended as far as Mount Carbon."
In the mid 1800s, the city's industry included Colliery Iron Works, Pottsville Rolling Mills, Pioneer Furnace, Spike and Bolt Works, Pottsville Foundry and Stove Works, Noble Boiler Works plus tanneries, broom and shoe factories, cigar manufacturers, and hosiery and knitting mills and much more, according to the "Joseph H. Zerbey History of Pottsville and Schuylkill County," published in 1936.
America's oldest
Perhaps the most famous of the industrial giants to settle in Pottsville in the 19th century was beer maker D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc.
D.G. Yuengling, the founder, was born in Germany in 1806. He traveled to America in 1823 and started brewing malt liquor in Pottsville soon afterward.
Yuengling established its first brewery in 1829 at 401 N. Centre St. When a fire destroyed the facility in 1830, Yuengling constructed a new brewery in 1831 at 501 Mahantongo St., where it still operates today.
Yuengling has expanded over its 183-year history. In April 1999, Yuengling purchased a brewery in Tampa, Fla., and started brewing there that summer. In 2000, Yuengling established the Yuengling Beer Co. at Mill Creek.
Today, more than 40,000 tourists visit Yuengling's Mahantongo Street brewery per year, according to Jenn Kruss, manager of the brewery's gift shop.
Dramatic change
As the 20th century dawned, the city's population grew to 15,710, and the city's skyline started to change dramatically.
In 1909, the six-story Thompson Building was Pottsville's first skyscraper, according to "Pottsville in the Twentieth Century" by Leo L. Ward and Mark T. Major. Built in 1909, the building at 23 N. Centre St. was known as the largest office building in Schuylkill County at the time, according to J. Robert Zane, Pottsville, a Historical Society of Schuylkill County board member.
In 1924, the eight-story Schuylkill Trust Building was built across the street from it at 101 N. Centre St., according to "Pottsville in the Twentieth Century."
Writer E.L. Clifford resided in Frackville and used to take the train from the northern Schuylkill borough to Pottsville's Union Station at 101 E. Union St.
"You went to the Union Street side and climbed up to Centre Street. Ah! There was a sight! Skyscrapers lined the street, and though a Woolworth or an Empire building has many times since been viewed, nothing was as impressive as those Centre Street buildings at first sight," Clifford said in the Zerbey history.
Visitors at the time might have been familiar with a candy store which made a name for itself over the years. Mootz Candies opened in 1919 at 220-222 S. Centre St. In July 2010, the chocolatier closed due to alleged damages caused by contractors hired to build the City of Pottsville's new Union Station at 300 S. Centre St.
Sports, scripts and art
Pottsville earned a place in football history in the 1920s.
On Dec. 6, 1925, the famed Pottsville Maroons defeated the Chicago Cardinals, 21-7, for the unofficial NFL title. Then, on Dec. 12, the Maroons defeated a non-NFL team, the Notre Dame All-Stars, 9-7, in an exhibition game at Philadelphia's Shibe Park.
The Philadelphia-based Frankford Yellow Jackets claimed the Maroons invaded their territory, the league suspended the Maroons from all rights and privileges and declared their franchise forfeited in the league.
In October 2007, ESPN Books published a book by David Fleming, Davidson, N.C., on the team titled "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship."
The city is also known for its artists and writers. One of the most notable is author John O'Hara, who wrote about the city in his fiction, but changed its name to "Gibbsville."
O'Hara was born in Pottsville in January 1905. His novels include "Appointment in Samarra" and "Butterfield 8." He also penned screenplays, plays and short story collections.
He died in April 1970 in Princeton, N.J., and was interred in Princeton Cemetery. In October 2002, a life-like bronze statue of O'Hara by sculptor James J. Ponter, Pitman, N.J., was placed at 115 S. Centre St. The Pottsville Bicentennial Committee raised the funds for its creation.
If you drive through the city today, you'll immediately get the impression that the city is home to a number of talented artists. There are numerous murals to prove it.
David Naydock, Pottsville, has painted murals professionally since 1983. His works include paintings near Pottsville Area High School, the former Pottsville Hospital and Warne Clinic (now Schuylkill Medical Center-South Jackson Street) and Big Jack's-Little Bob's Brewers' Outlet.
In 2008, Martin Braukus, Pottsville, painted the "Welcome to Pottsville" mural near North Centre and Nichols streets. It includes a collection of figures who represent the city's history, including Civil War heroes and citizens, workers and volunteers, including firefighters.
The painting also honored Terence P. "Terry" Reiley, the youthful mayor who lost his battle with leukemia in 2000. Reiley is the son of current mayor, John D.W. Reiley, who was appointed to succeed his son and has been re-elected over the years to retain the position.
The arts in the city are celebrated annually with a three-day festival that started in 2007. This year, The sixth annual Block of Art will be held from April 20 to 22.
Getting around
Transportation means became plentiful with the onset of steam engines and electricity.
In 1932, electric trolleys were discontinued in Pottsville and bus lines were established for inter-city transportation, according to the Zerbey history.
For many years, passenger train service was offered in Pottsville, carrying commuters and visitors from the city to Philadelphia.
Schuylkill County Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin reminisced last week about train excursions from the city. He said that he and his sisters used to board the train at the Reading Terminal near East Norwegian Street, where One Norwegian Plaza now stands.
In 1958, when he was 11, Dolbin and his two sisters, Ellen, 8, and Jane, 5, rode the train by themselves from Pottsville to Norristown, where they would meet relatives from Ambler, Montgomery County.
"We were just in our own company. There was never any fear of children being kidnapped or anything like that," Dolbin said. "The adults on the train would watch out for them. I remember one time my mother kissed us good-bye and told us not to talk to anybody who was strange or anything like that, and she was overheard by a couple of nuns who were in the same car. And they said 'Don't worry. We'll watch over them.' "
Passenger train service was discontinued in the city in the early 1970s because demand dwindled, according to Mayor John D.W. Reiley.
Transportation got a boost last year with the opening of the Union Station Intermodal Transit Center on South Centre Street. The three-story building is the main terminal for Schuylkill Transportation System and home to the Schuylkill County Visitors Bureau.
The building also houses a Pottsville police substation and a construction office.
Last month, it was an-nounced during Reiley's State of the City address that the Schuylkill Economic Development Corp. and Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce would relocate its offices from South Progress Avenue to space on the intermodel's second floor.
Schools and shops
Dolbin said in the 1950s, the school routine for a child in Pottsville was very different than it is today.
Born Sept. 20, 1947, Dolbin attended a private kindergarten with teacher Emily Jennings at 1707 Mahantongo St. Then he went to Yorkville Elementary.
"No buses in those days. We walked. It was probably a half mile from my house, maybe a little more," Dolbin said. "You know everybody. These were local schools. The mothers and fathers knew each other and everybody got along very well.
"I remember the classrooms, great big rooms with those little desks all in a row, all nailed to the floor. It's just the way it was. Everything was in a row. Everything was neat. Everything was in place. Everything was the way it should be, orderly. Order and discipline. Those are good things, and they still are," Dolbin said.
From there, Dolbin went to the Patterson School for sixth, seventh and eighth grades. He graduated from Pottsville High School in 1965.
There were numerous community schools in Pottsville in the middle of the 20th century. A total of 10 were consolidated to form the John S. Clarke Elementary Center in 1982, according to incoming Superintendent Jeffrey S. Zwiebel. They include: Jackson Street Elementary; Jalappa School; Race Street School; Centre Street School; Garfield School; Nicholas Biddle School; Palo Alto School; Port Carbon Elementary Center; Mount Hope School and Yorkville School.
While city children largely walked to community schools, city residents did much walking downtown to shop and do business.
David White was born in Pottsville in 1950. Still a city resident today at age 61, he said it was wonderful growing up in the city, especially in the 1960s when downtown had a shopping district with name anchor stores.
"During Christmastime, you would go downtown to Pomeroy's and Sears and everything was just happening. They had animated mechanical animals in Pomeroy's for the holidays. It was a very awesome time," White said.
While those chain stores moved out in the 1970s and 1980s, some smaller family owned businesses in Pottsville have stood the test of time. Among them is Roma Pizza which opened in 1969 at 116 W. Market St. It was started by two brothers, John and Frank Russo.
"It was just a one-room pizza shop. It was the one where we make pizza now. There was seven or eight booths and that was it," said John's son, Peter J., Orwigsburg, who now co-owns the restaurant with his cousin, Peter F., also of Orwigsburg.
During the 1980s, the downtown crowds of yesteryear had moved to bigger indoor malls.
"The '80s were bad. There was hardly any retail downtown," Peter J. said last week.
But Roma persevered. The restaurant only sold pizza and soda until a 1995 expansion added other items, like subs and burgers, to the menu. During a second expansion in 2004, a downstairs dining room was added and a liquor license was acquired. A new facade was built for the restaurant, and an old building was removed to make way for parking.
In 2008, a second floor was added to the dining room. Meanwhile, the business is in the process of expanding its kitchen and counter area by renovating a former laundromat located just west of the business.
"Look at Roma now. It's become quite an enterprise," White said.
Population drops
Over the years, the city's population has fluctuated, according to U.S. Census figures.
In 1831, it was 2,500. It spiked in 1940 with 24,530. At the time, Schuylkill County had a population of 228,331 and Pennsylvania's population stood at 9,900,180.
In 2010, the date of the last U.S. Census, the population of Pottsville was 14,324, down from 15,549 in 2000, a 7.9 percent decrease. Meanwhile in 2010, the population of Schuylkill County was 148,289 and the population of Pennsylvania was 12,702,379.
White said above all, Pottsville was, and still is, a great place for families to raise their children. He raised three children in Pottsville in the 1980s and 1990s. He coached midget football in Pottsville for 18 years.
"You don't have the rat race that you have everywhere else. There is a little bit of hustle and bustle. I don't think the children get lost in it," White said. "It's still such a small community with a lot to offer. Back when I was growing up, they had splash parties at JFK pool. And they still have splash parties there."
The City of Pottsville operates two swimming pools at the JFK Recreational Complex, a 572,000-gallon pool installed in 1965 and the 3,500-gallon kiddie pool, installed in 2000, according to Daniel E. Kelly, the city's superintendent of streets. The city once had a pool on the city's east end at what is now Gen. George A. Joulwan Park. It closed in the mid-1990s and now houses a skating park. City stats
Population, 2010: 14,324
Reporting from Allentown, Pa. — When Peter Kupec was a boy, his mother cooked on a coal stove in the kitchen, which heated the whole house. Now 80, Kupec still uses coal to heat his Lansford home in Pennsylvania's anthracite region, which is estimated to have billions of tons of coal deposits to fuel industry and warm living rooms for centuries. So he was surprised when he called a dealer a few weeks ago to buy two tons of coal. "They said 'My God, I don't know when we can deliver it,'" Kupec said. "It might be six to eight weeks. There's no coal." Global demand and renewed popularity for the low-cost fuel have combined to put a strain on Pennsylvania anthracite supplies with a rather surprising result. People in the coal region are having trouble finding fuel for their stoves and furnaces. There's plenty of coal in the ground. But miners can't dig it fast enough to satisfy increased demand from dealers who want to ship it overseas or truck it to a house down the road. Much of the coal is purchased on contract by large industrial users before it's even extracted. The situation underscores the complexities of global energy markets, showing how trade decisions and business climates in Asia and South America influence the relationship between a Pennsylvania coal hauler and local customers. It also shows how coal, which over the last 60 years has faded from its position as a dominant home heating fuel to a niche market, is making a comeback in the face of high oil costs. A ton of coal, which can cost about $180 in the coal region, provides the same amount of heat as 180 gallons of heating oil, which would cost $630. In Lehigh and Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania, more than 2,600 households used coal as a primary heat source in 2010, up more than 50% from 2007, according to Census Bureau figures. Thousands more use coal stoves to supplement oil and gas furnaces or electric heat, coal industry experts say. "We as a company are mining more coal, employing more people and packaging and selling more to the residential market than we ever have before," said Dan Blaschak, vice president of Blaschak Coal Corp. in Mahanoy City. "When it comes to supplemental heat and saving money, there is no fuel like anthracite coal for doing that job." Hobel's Coal and Fuel Oil in Coplay has been delivering coal throughout the Lehigh Valley for 70 years. And customers come to its yard from as far as New England to load small trucks, owner Michael Hobel said. "Years ago, you could just drive up and get a load of coal, but now you have to schedule everything," Hobel said. Most coal mined in the United States is burned in power plants to produce electricity. Anthracite has a higher carbon content and fewer impurities than other coals, which makes it more valuable. Besides heating homes, it is used to make steel, plastics and municipal water filtration systems. Growth in countries such as China, which now imports coal because it burns more than it produces, has disrupted global markets. And international coal dealers have turned to Pennsylvania for anthracite as a result, industry experts said. Lehigh Anthracite, which operates a 7,500-acre mine, is producing 30,000 tons of anthracite each month and has sold it all through 2012, manager Zachary Kroh said. International coal dealers are buying more Pennsylvania anthracite, he said, because they are worried about potential supply problems in South Africa and Russia. "These international buyers are looking to diversify their suppliers, and there's not a lot of anthracite around," Kroh said. "We're doing everything we can to get more house coal on the market, it's just tough to meet those demands and our current orders." Kupec got worried when he found out coal supplies were limited. He set his coal stove to burn more slowly, which lowered the temperature in his home, and he began using an electric space heater. He was relieved Wednesday when he finally received two tons of coal from his dealer. "I thanked the good Lord for that," Kupec said.In Pennsylvania near the mines, coal is hard to get
Increased foreign exports and the renewed popularity of the low-cost alternative to fuel oil have strained supplies so homeowners struggle to find anthracite for their stoves and furnaces.
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Tens of thousands of residents in the New York metropolitan area want coal for home heating and cannot get it. Coal dealers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut report that residential customers are offering more than their asking prices - already inflated because of demand - and one said he was being offered $50 bribes to move customers up on his waiting list. The dealers say many customers are paying for more coal and better grades of it than they are actually receiving.
''People are literally begging me for coal,'' said a spokesman for the Coalrite Corporation on Long Island, the area with the most severe shortages. ''I post a sign that the coal yard will be open for a couple of hours, and 30 people line up for small rations, just a few days' supply, which is all I can give them. I have to actually give out numbers.''
''Some who come here,'' he said, ''are riding the coal circuit, picking up small two- or three-day supplies in Suffolk County, Brooklyn and Connecticut.'' To avoid having customers call him at home, the Coalrite spokesman asked that his name not be used.
The shortage does not affect large industrial users of coal, such as Consolidated Edison, according to Frank Mohney, president of the Pennsylvania Coal Mining Association, because they use bituminous, or soft, coal rather than the anthracite, or hard, coal burned in homeheating units.
Anthracite, a narrow segment of coal mining output, is estimated by industry officials to amount to about one-half of 1 percent of total coal production in this country. Figures for 1979, the latest available, show that 825 million tons of soft coal and 4.8 million tons of anthracite were produced in the United States.
The situation is not an emergency for most of the peo-ple besieging coal companies for orders. Social service agencies throughout the New York area say there are few, if any, people without heat in their homes because of the coal shortage.
Coal dealers said nearly all the callers seeking coal were homeowners who had bought coal-burning stoves in recent months and still have their old oil-burning units, which they can resume using. To them, the coal shortage is not a matter of life and death, but of frustration and betrayal.
''I am patriotic,'' said Norman Barlow of Wassaic, N.Y., in Dutchess County. ''President Carter said for energy independence we should convert to abundant American coal. I spent $7,000 on a coal furnace for my house and $2,000 on a furnace for a tenant house. Now there's no coal.''
After spending $2,000 for a coal stove, Margaret Kriete of Rockville Centre, L.I., and her husband expected to cut their heating bill from $1,300 last year to $400 this year. ''But coal went from $78 per ton in September to $105 two months later,'' she said. ''Then we had to start buying it in little bags, which made the price about $180 per ton, and now we can't get it at all.''
Coal dealers throughout the New York area say that while they are getting more coal this year than last, customer demand has increased dramatically from last winter's levels because of the sudden popularity of coal stoves. A Shift From Wood to Coal
Albert Edwards, owner of Island Stove Works, a four-store chain on Long Island, said that three winters ago he sold mainly wood stoves and only one coal stove. Two winters ago, he said, he sold about four coal stoves, and last winter his coal-stove sales jumped to 1,400.
''The price of wood went way up,'' he said, ''and coal became the alternative to expensive oil.'' Coalrite buys its coal from the Bethlehem Mines Corporation of Bethlehem, Pa. ''We have doubled our supply of anthracite to the heating market in the past two years,'' a Bethlehem spokesman said, ''but there is still a shortage throughout the Northeast because of the tremendous increase in usage.''
He said it was not a simple matter to respond to the surge in demand for anthracite. Two years ago, he pointed out, Bethlehem opened a new mine in anticipation of increased demand, but after digging through 500 feet of rock its workers have only now reached the coal.
A spokesman for the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company of Pittston, Pa., another major supplier of anthracite to the New York area, said its mines were operating around the clock, seven days a week, in an attempt to catch up with demand. Demand Heavy on L.I.
''We have tripled our tonnage to Long Island,'' said William Mooney, a national sales director for Lehigh, adding that for reasons unknown to the industry, Long Island is an exceptionally strong market for home-heating coal.
''This demand came so suddenly that no one anticipated it,'' he said. ''It takes time to catch up. It takes three to six months to get permits for new mines. It can be two to five years before the equipment - the massive shovels and the rest - is ready.''
Another problem, he said, is that most anthracite is surface-mined and winter weather hampers production. Moreover, he said, only two of nine sizes of anthracite coal coming out of the Lehigh mines are the proper size for home-heating units.
The Weed and Duryea Company of New Canaan, Conn., is out of coal. ''Two years ago we were down to selling two 50-pound bags,'' said Peter Huidekoper, the owner. ''This year we've gone through 47 tons already. We see no end to it. It's cheaper than oil, and you don't have to go to the Middle East to get it.''
John Fairclough, the owner of the Fairclough Fuels Company in Paterson, N.J., said that he was selling heating oil for $1.11 a gallon and coal for $110 a ton, and that 200 gallons of oil were equivalent in heating capacity to one ton of coal.
''Coal is half the price of oil,'' he said. ''Why I have to beg, holler and scream to get coal from suppliers is no mystery to me.''
Illustrations: photo of coal loading at Fairclough Fuels Company photo of customers at Coalrite Corporation (page B3)
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David McKeown/staff photo Rep. Mike Tobash, R-125, left, unveils legislation Wednesday aimed to increase employment and coal production throughout the region at Blaschak Coal Co., near Delano. Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-124, center, and Rep. Neal P. Goodman, D-123, also spoke at the press conference.
DELANO - Strengthening the anthracite coal industry to help create jobs, increasing coal production and reclaiming the scarred areas damaged by former strip mining operations is the goal of proposed legislation supported by the three state House legislators from Schuylkill County.
Using a reclaimed mining area between Mahanoy City and Delano as a backdrop, the legislation was unveiled at a press conference Wednesday at the mining operation of Blaschak Coal Corp. Attending were state Rep. Mike Tobash, R-125, Rep. Neal P. Goodman, D-123, Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-124, Dan Blaschak, vice president of Blaschak Coal, and Duane C. Feagley, Pennsylvania Anthracite Council executive director.
The legislation, House Bill 1813, was sponsored by Tobash in the House and was referred to the Committee on Environmental Resources and Energy. Goodman and Knowles are co-sponsors.
"We're here today to talk about the bright future of the mining industry in the five-county anthracite area, including right here in Schuylkill County," Tobash said. "That's right, I said the 'bright future.' Many people think that mining is a dying industry and that coal is becoming obsolete because of other forms of energy like natural gas, wind power and solar. Anthracite mining helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution and support the energy production demands of two world wars. Many people believe those days are behind us and the demand for coal just isn't there anymore, but that's just not true."
Tobash said that worldwide demand for anthracite coal is at its highest level in years, putting Schuylkill and other counties in a position to take advantage of the demand.
"At a time when our region is struggling under the weight of consistently high jobless rates, we have a golden opportunity right here in Schuylkill County. All we need to do is take advantage of it, and that's what this House bill is all about," Tobash said.
The legislation aims to address the state's bonding regulations that inhibit mine operators from getting access to capital that could otherwise be invested in growing and expanding their operations. Those regulations have not only reduced job growth, but have led to layoffs of employees in some cases. The bonding is required by the commonwealth to ensure sufficient funds are available to reclaim a mining site in the event the operator defaults. However, the high cost of bonding is inhibiting the volume of reclamation activity and driving up the cost to taxpayers.
"The bottom line is the workers suffer, the operators suffer and our economy suffers," Tobash said. "If they can get the bonds, the industry stabilizes and coal production is increased. The economy gets a much-needed boost and workers have available to them stable, good-paying jobs."
In 2000, the state Department of Environmental Protection changed to a full-cost bonding system, establishing a $7 million Conversion Assistance Fund that was used to write $70 million in bonds for coal operators in Pennsylvania. Because the volume of defaults was less than anticipated, the fund now contains more than $12.7 million, but current law does not allow the money to be used to write new bonds. House Bill 1813 would change that situation, allowing that money not being used to help coal operators.
"(House Bill 1813) takes state money that is sitting idle right now and puts it in a position to allow the industry to expand and put people back to work," Goodman said. "This legislation would be extremely helpful in the economic growth of Schuylkill County, especially here in my legislative district. We need to get the jobs back that come from developing coal."
Goodman said that it costs about $10,000 an acre to reclaim a mining site. In the case supporting mine operators in the working, existing mining sites, the reclamation work will be part of the overall re-mining process and cost the taxpayers nothing, a position that Blaschak agrees with.
"With there being a $15 billion mine reclamation legacy in the state of Pennsylvania, it is absolutely necessary that state government and the private mining industry join hands together in working through the reclamation process, providing the most possible benefit to the environment while providing the least cost to the taxpayer," Blaschak said.
"Current estimates show there is still 4 to 6 billion tons of reserve in the anthracite region, and the demand for the product is there," Knowles said. "Imagine what we could do in mining that coal safely and putting more people back to work. That's what we should be doing. It's typical of government that we're a stumbling block. We simply need to get out of the way."
The Pennsylvania Anthracite Council is a trade organization representing surface mine operators, prep plant operators and suppliers in the commonwealth. Feagley said the bill provides a great opportunity of government and industry to partner on something that has many positive benefits.
Attending the press conference as an observer was Bobby Burns, president of Keystone Anthracite Company Inc., Girardville. He agreed with the goal of the legislation.
"It's good for everybody," Burns said. "It takes a tremendous amount of capital to do what we do today. A new piece of equipment nowadays you can't get for under a million dollars. We need our capital to borrow money to buy more equipment, therefore to hire more people to expand our operations to mine more coal. We can't use our capital for bonding when we need to use it for equipment purchases."
Thats right winter is around the corner and Anthracite supplies start to get tighter as there is more demand. Secure your winter supply of Anthracite coal now. Call Coal Carbon Consulting for the lowest prices and the highest quality Anthracite coal around..
Kyle Buck of Sugarloaf, Pa., fills a stove with anthracite coal as his wife, Kelly, plays with their daughter Lila. More Photos »
SUGARLOAF, Pa. — Kyle Buck heaved open the door of a makeshift bin abutting his suburban ranch house. Staring at a two-ton pile of coal that was delivered by truck a few weeks ago, Mr. Buck worried aloud that it would not be enough to last the winter.
“I think I’m going through it faster than I thought I would,” he said.
Aptly, perhaps, for an era of hard times, coal is making a comeback as a home heating fuel.
Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble.
Burning coal at home was once commonplace, of course, but the practice had been declining for decades. Coal consumption for residential use hit a low of 258,000 tons in 2006 — then started to rise. It jumped 9 percent in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, and 10 percent more in the first eight months of 2008.
Online coal forums are buzzing with activity, as residential coal enthusiasts trade tips and advice for buying and tending to coal heaters. And manufacturers and dealers of coal-burning stoves say they have been deluged with orders — many placed when the price of heating oil jumped last summer — that they are struggling to fill.
“Back in the 1980s, we sold hundreds a year,” said Rich Kauffman, the sales manager at E.F.M. Automatic Heat in Emmaus, Pa., one of the oldest makers of coal-fired furnaces and boilers in the United States, in a nod to the uptick in coal sales that followed the oil crises of the 1970s.
“But that dwindled to nothing in the early 1990s — down to as many as 10 a year,” he said. “It picked up about a year ago, when we moved about 60 units, and then this year we’ve already sold 200.”
Dean Lehman, the plant manager for Hitzer Inc., a family-owned business in Berne, Ind., that makes smaller, indoor coal stoves, said his stoves were on back order until March. And Jeffery Gliem, the director of operations at the Reading Stove Company and its parent, Reading Anthracite, in Pottsville, Pa., which supplies coal and stoves to 15 states in the Northeast and Midwest, said the uptick in interest was the largest he had seen in 30 years.
“In your typical year you might have five, six, seven thousand stoves being sold,” Mr. Gliem said. “This year it was probably double that.”
The coal trend is consistent with steep increases in other forms of supplementary heating that people can use to save money — most of them less messy than coal. Home Depot reports that it has sold more than 80,000 tons of pellet fuel, a sort of compressed sawdust, for the season to date. That is an increase of 137 percent compared with the same period last year, said Jean Niemi, a company spokeswoman.
Coal may never make economic sense in areas far from where it is mined. But in places within reasonable delivery range, the price tends to be stable, compared with heating oil or natural gas. Prices for natural gas more than tripled in recent years before plunging in the last few months amid the downturn.
Coals vary in quality, but on average, a ton of coal contains about as much potential heat as 146 gallons of heating oil or 20,000 cubic feet of natural gas, according to the Energy Information Administration. A ton of anthracite, a particularly high grade of coal, can cost as little as $120 near mines in Pennsylvania. The equivalent amount of heating oil would cost roughly $380, based on the most recent prices in the state — and over $470 using prices from December 2007. An equivalent amount of natural gas would cost about $480 at current prices.
Mr. Buck said he could buy coal for $165 a ton. On a blustery afternoon recently, he was still studying the manual for his $2,300 Alaska Channing stoker, which gave off an intense heat in the den. An automated hopper in the back slowly dispensed fine anthracite coal chips into the stove’s belly, and every couple of days, Mr. Buck emptied the ash. He said he hoped the stove would cut his oil consumption in half.
“Now, somewhere, you’ve got to take into account the convenience of turning up your thermostat, versus having two tons of coal to shovel and the hopper and ashes to deal with,” Mr. Buck said. But if the $330 worth of coal in his makeshift bin “heats the house for the winter,” he added, “you can’t beat it.”
Wesley Ridlington, a homeowner in Fairbanks, Alaska, bought an outdoor coal furnace for $13,000 in March and uses it as his main source for heat and hot water.
On a recent evening, as the temperature hovered around 23 below zero, Mr. Ridlington worked to free up the rotating burning plate inside the furnace, which he figured was jammed by a pebble. He did not seem to mind the glitch, or, for that matter, loading the furnace twice a week and emptying the ash pan every night. “It takes a little bit of time,” he said, “but for the savings, it’s worth it.”
Mr. Ridlington said he was typically burning 1,500 gallons of oil each winter to heat his 3,300-square-foot home. At last year’s prices, that would have cost about $7,000, he said. This winter, he expects to burn nine tons of coal at a cost of about $1,400.
“The initial cost was expensive,” he said. “But in three to five years, it’ll be paid for, even with prices going down. And if fuel goes back up again, it’ll be even more savings.”
Rob Richards, who owns a business in Fairbanks that sells spas, pool tables, and now outdoor coal furnaces, said that when oil prices were higher, he could promise fuel cost savings of more than 75 percent and a payback of 18 months for an outdoor coal furnace. With oil prices down again, orders for furnaces have dropped off, and the savings are closer to 50 percent with a few years’ time to recoup the cost, he said.
“Still, you’re looking at a quick payback,” Mr. Richards added.
Coal was a dominant source of heat for American homes for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Americans were still burning more than 50 million tons for heating in 1950, according to the federal statistics.
But coal, primarily used today in power plants and steelmaking, has not been used for heating on a large scale for decades. Cleaner and more easily distributed forms of heating fuel — including natural gas, electricity and oil — displaced coal, and residential use dropped precipitously, to 2.8 million tons by 1975, and then to less than 500,000 tons by 2000.
Even with the recovery of the last couple of years, residential use of coal in the United States, at less than 300,000 tons today and representing a fraction of 1 percent of all coal use, is “not even a blip on the screen,” said Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association.
Still, even amid the steep decline, small upticks similar to the current one have appeared from time to time, and residential use of coal never entirely went away.
In Homer, Alaska, fall storms wash crude coal onto the beach from underwater deposits. In the mountains of eastern Kentucky or the hills of central Pennsylvania, residents can simply dig it out of the ground.
“As long as people have been mining coal up there,” said John Hiett of Kentucky’s Office of Mine Safety and Licensing, “people have burned coal in their houses.”
Government data suggest that about 131,000 households use coal as their primary source of heat, with perhaps 80,000 more using it as a secondary source. Those numbers are small enough that issues relating to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions have remained largely off the radar.
Burning coal does throw fine particles into the air that can pose problems for some people, similar to the problems involved in burning wood — though wood stoves and fireplace inserts are increasingly subject to regulation to cut down on pollutants.
“Coal stoves don’t have that,” said James E. Houck, the president of Omni Environmental Services, a firm in Portland, Ore., that tests air quality. “And there’s no regulatory pressure for them to have it.”
In some localities where residential coal burning is becoming a factor, that might be changing. In Fairbanks, air quality experts suspect the increase in coal burning — along with increased wood burning — is contributing to concentrations of fine particles well above federal limits.
“We see it as a real health hazard to Fairbanks,” said Jim Conner, the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s air quality specialist.
Concerns like these have not deterred companies marketing coal. Back East, the Blaschak Coal Corporation, a midsize supplier of anthracite in Mahanoy City, Pa., still emblazons company trucks and baseball caps with images of Santa Claus lugging a sack of coal.
“Everybody’s looking at wherever they can to save money,” said Daniel Blaschak, a co-owner of the company. “ ’Cause guess what? We no longer have disposable income. We are up to our necks in debt. And there’s very few things we can’t live without, but heat is one of them.”
