Scott Colliery
Interactive map of Scott Colliery
40°47′21″N 76°28′26″W / 40.789136°N 76.47382°W / 40.789136; -76.47382
Location	Kulpmont, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
History
Built	1894–1898
Demolished	mid-20th century
Site notes
Owner	Susquehanna Coal Company (1894–1917); Susquehanna Collieries Company (1917–1922); M.A. Hanna Company (1922–c.1961)

The Scott Colliery was an anthracite coal mine located in Kulpmont, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. The colliery played a direct role in founding the first residential settlement in Kulpmont and left a lasting environmental mark on the Shamokin Creek watershed through acid mine drainage.^[1][2] The Susquehanna Coal Company ran the colliery as a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pennsylvania Canal Company.^[3] It operated from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, when falling demand for anthracite coal forced its closure.^[4]

Coal was first found in the channel of Quaker Run in 1790, in the area that would later become Kulpmont.^[1] Large-scale extraction did not begin until Isaac Tomlinson identified coal veins in the area.^[3]

The Susquehanna Coal Company incorporated in April 1867 as the Pittston Railroad and Coal Company, taking its final name in February 1869.^[3] The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pennsylvania Canal Company held the company's stock, and the company controlled 5,823 acres of coal lands on both sides of the Susquehanna River.^[3] The Scott Colliery was one of seven mines the company ran in Northumberland County, alongside the Cameron, Luke Fidler, Hickory Ridge, Hickory Swamp, Pennsylvania, and Richards Collieries.^[3] Production figures, workforce counts, and accident records for all seven were published yearly in the Pennsylvania Annual Report of Mines, held at Penn State University Libraries in a continuous series from 1870 to 1979.^[5]

The first major phase of construction involved the Scott Branch of the Shamokin Valley and Pottsville Railroad, a 2.95-mile spur built in 1894 to reach the colliery.^[6] Workers sank the main hoisting shaft in 1898 using an African American labor force, whose families settled at the end of Poplar Street in company-built homes, forming the first residential community in what would become Kulpmont.^[1] The company then put up the Scott Breaker to crush and sort anthracite into commercial sizes.^[1] A 1918 engineering survey for the Susquehanna Collieries Company included fold-out plans for the Scott Colliery as part of its Shamokin Division records.^[7]

In 1905, Kulpmont saw a building boom as immigrant families came to work in the mines.^[1] Early settlers were mainly Polish and Italian, followed by Hungarian, Irish, Russian, and Jewish families.^[1] Kulpmont incorporated as a borough on August 24, 1915.^[8] The Polish Club, Italian Club, Russian Club, and Hungarian Club were among the ethnic organizations that took root in the borough during this period.^[1]

In 1913, the Pennsylvania Railroad voluntarily sold its holdings in anthracite coal companies, including the Susquehanna Coal Company, while other anthracite railroads faced antitrust prosecution.^[9] In 1917, the Susquehanna Coal Company handed its mining properties to the newly formed Susquehanna Collieries Company and withdrew from mining.^[3] The new company electrified its collieries through the firm H.C. Felver, finishing the work in 1922.^[9] That same year, the M.A. Hanna Company, an Ohio holding company with interests in bituminous coal and iron, bought out the Susquehanna Collieries Company.^[9]

Pennsylvania anthracite output peaked at roughly 100 million tons in 1917 and fell steadily after that.^[4] Oil and natural gas cut deeply into the home heating market that anthracite had long supplied.^[4] The Susquehanna Collieries Company's Pennsylvania mines wound down through the mid-20th century as demand dried up.^[4]

The Susquehanna Coal Company's Northumberland County mines were caught up in the anthracite coal strike of 1902. In September 1902, striking workers attacked a train carrying non-union men to the Richards and Pennsylvania Collieries. The Northumberland County sheriff called on Governor William A. Stone for help, and Stone sent the Fourth Regiment to the area.^[3] The Luke Fidler Colliery, run by the same company, was hit by two gas explosions: one in October 1894 killed five workers, and another in November 1902 killed four more.^[3]

The worked-out chambers beneath Scott Ridge continue to leak acid mine drainage through the Scott Ridge Mine Tunnel. The United States Geological Survey tracks this discharge at station USGS-404739076291901, at 40°47′39″N, 76°29′19″W.^[10] That tunnel, along with three other mine discharges in the area, sends approximately 18.3 million gallons of polluted water per day into Shamokin Creek — roughly 40 percent of all impaired flow reaching the creek.^[2] The former colliery grounds were later redeveloped as the Kulpmont Veterans Memorial Sports Complex.^[11]