Map Notes:
The topographical maps are from the USGS series, most dated 1969 and updated in the 1980s, obtained from the Penn State University archive; The simpler outline topos, streets and 3D views were derived from DeLorme Topo USA software. The railroad maps come from the Library of Congress' 'American Memories' Series of prints and photographs. Further sources for the county and township maps are indicated on the pages where they appear.
For a better picture of some of the (south of Hazleton) mine patches see the regional map ca. 1875. This 539 KByte map was manufactured by using several old maps of small areas as overlays to a modern US Geological Survey quadrangle. Using computer aided drafting methods, the small maps were scaled to appropriate reference points and overlaid in red and blue on the USGS map. The contour lines were removed for improved clarity --- except for the strippings, (strip mines), and coalbanks around Audenreid to indicate the present state of old Yorktown. Most of the correspondences are quite accurate. We may be off by a few feet in the McAdoo locale, a half block or so at Hazleton. This is because most effort was applied to precisely locate the long-gone Yorktown. It was most interesting to track the faint traces of roads and places on the modern map with the long ago cartography of the 1875 surveys.
Similar techniques were applied to a series of circa 1880-1890 coalfield geology maps to manufacture the picture/map of the Eastern Mid-Anthracite Coal Fields and a partial of the South- and West-Mid Anthracite Fields.
The Early Railroads of the Coalfields
View online and trace an early railroad journey from Port Clinton to Catawissa in Harper's Monthly, June, 1862 from the Cornell University 'Making of America' web site.
This and similar stories are (improbably, since the objective location is at least 110 miles distant), collected in the The Catskill Archive, which see below ...
The Catawissa RR transit begins at Port Clinton, through Tamaqua, on through the Tuscarora-Quakake Valley, and up the switchback on the Spring Mountain. Here it reaches its highest point at Summit (now Lofty). From there it passes through the Lofty Tunnel and descends slowly on the north side of Spring/Mahanoy/Locust Mountain to the valley of the Catawissa Creek. At that time this trip was something of an adventure, the full Catawissa RR having been completed only a few years earlier. Coal was only beginning to be mined then at this remote edge of Schuylkill County near the patch towns of Honeybrook and Silverbrook of the West Audenreid Basin. By 1884 the Catawissa RR had become part of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co.
Connections with early Klein and East Union Townships
Lofty Tunnel and the LVRR 'Arch'
Great stories of regional early American railroading:
The Catskill Archive Railroad Extra Stories Index
Catskill Archive's: A Trip To The Gravity Railroad at Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe)
Catskill Archive: A Wider Ranging Trip through the Coalfields
Catskill Archive: Switchback Excursion - To Mauch Chunk and the "High Bridge"
See some excellent modern photographs of the terrain near Jim Thorpe and the old resort at Glen Onoko here. Click on the icon cameras on the picture index map.
Lehigh
Valley Railroad (1) -- Ignore the badly done home
page, the rest is worth looking at.
Lehigh Valley Railroad (2) --
A comprehensive picture gallery.
Lehigh valley Railroad
(3) -- Links to early railroading and more. "No beavers
in Beaver Meadows"
LVRR
Timetable
See a thorough and illustrated treatment of Anthracite Country railroading at "Black Diamonds to Tidewater", a web site for the Jersey Central Railroad.
Index to all pictures Home Page