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Luzerne County, PA
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Created on September 25, 1786 from part of
Northumberland County and named for the Chevalier de la
Luzerne, French minister to the United States.
Wilkes-Barre, the county seat, was laid out in 1772 and
named for two members of the English Parliament, John
Wilkes and Isaac Barre, both advocates of American
rights. It was incorporated as a borough on March 17,
1806 and as a city on May 4, 1871.
 Pennsylvania
settlers, Indians, and a Connecticut settlement company
engaged in a three-way struggle for the Wyoming Valley.
The Yankee Pennamite Wars were fought here from 1769 to
1782. In 1786 Connecticut’s acceptance of the federal
award to Pennsylvania allowed Pennsylvania to form the
county, and a 1799 statute compromised the land titles
claimed by Connecticut families. Led by the Delaware,
“King” Teedyuscung, Indians committed the first Wyoming
Massacre of settlers on Oct. 15, 1763; with British
assistance Indians perpetrated the second Wyoming
Massacre on July 3, 1778. In 1808, Judge Fell proved
anthracite coal’s burning potential, and in 1834 the
North Branch Canal began to make coal exporting
practical. Many canals and railroads followed, and
Luzerne’s two anthracite fields flourished. In time the
city of Scranton rivaled Wilkes Barre, which led to the
creation of Lackawanna County in 1887. Textiles and
metal products manufacturing developed. Textile
factories depended on miners’ families for their
laborers. Coal strikes of 1902 and 1925–1926 were so
bitter that consumers sought alternate fuels, and mining
declined. World War II revived anthracite prices, but
the Knox Mine disaster of January 22, 1959, was the
death knell of deep anthracite mining. Presently,
Luzerne produces about one-fourth of the anthracite coal
in the state, mostly by surface operations.
Economically, the county has had heavy unemployment
since World War II, although new mining machines had
made mining labor-efficient long before the market
diminished in the 1960s. Only about one-eighth of
Luzerne is farmed; harvested crops are more valuable
than animal products, especially potatoes. |
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