Reading Anthracite Company is a

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

company based in Pottsville,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It mainly mines

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

in the

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as compris ...

of eastern Pennsylvania. The company owns the

Bear Valley Strip Mine The Bear Valley Strip Mine is an abandoned coal strip mine located in Coal Township, Northumberland County, to the southwest of the town of Shamokin, Pennsylvania. It lies in the Western Middle Field of the Anthracite belt in the Ridge-and-Va ...

Northumberland County, Pennsylvania Northumberland County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,647. Its county seat is Sunbury. The county was formed in 1772 from parts of Lancas ...

.Sequence of structural stages of the Alleghany orogeny at the Bear Valley Strip Mine, Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Nickelsen, R. P. (Dept. of Geology,

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineerin ...

)

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitch ...

Centennial Field Guide—Northeastern Section, 1987

History

Reading Anthracite Company; origins date back to 1871 when its predecessor, the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company (P. & R. C.& I.) was chartered. As a large publicly traded concern, P. & R. C. & I. had diverse industrial interests which revolved primarily around its main business of railroading. P. & R. C. & I. changed its corporate title in 1956 to The Philadelphia & Reading Corporation, of which Reading Anthracite Company was one of its many operating divisions. In 1961, Philadelphia & Reading Corporation divested itself of its anthracite coal interests, selling the Reading Anthracite company to its present owners. The unionized mine suffered an on-the-job fatality in July 2017.

References

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External links

Reading Anthracite Company websiteHistoric Images of Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company at the Hagley Library Digital Archives

Archives and records

Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company photograph albums
at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School. Companies based in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania Coal companies of the United States Companies established in 1871 1871 establishments in Pennsylvania