Eckley Miners' Village

Eckley Miners' Village in eastern Pennsylvania is an anthracite coal mining patch town located near Hazleton, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Since 1970, Eckley has been owned and operated as a museum by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.HistoryEarly yearsBefore the 1850s, Eckley was not a mining town, but a rural, forested community called Shingletown. It was located on land owned by the Tench Coxe Estate. The inhabitants took advantage of the surrounding woodlands and made shingles to be sold in White Haven and Hazleton. These goods were traded for the necessities of life, such as “whiskey, port, and tobacco”.Coal is discoveredIn 1853, four prospectors came to Shingletown and found that the land contained several veins of coal. Within the year these four men, Richard Sharpe, Asa Lansford Foster, Francis Weiss and John Leisenring, formed Sharpe, Leisenring and Company, later known as Sharpe, Weiss, and Company. Judge Charles Coxe of Philadelphia, executor of the Tench Coxe Estate, granted the company a 20-year lease for the establishment and operation of a colliery on these 1,500 acres (6 km²) of land. In 1854 the company began work on this, the Council Ridge Colliery.