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Schuylkill County, PA
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Created on March 1, 1811 from parts of Berks and
Northampton Counties and named for the Schuylkill River.
“Schuylkill” is Dutch for “hidden stream.” Parts of
Columbia and Luzerne Counties were added on March 3,
1818. Pottsville, the county seat after December 1,
1851, was incorporated as a borough on February 19, 1828
and became a city in 1910. It was named for the Pott
family, early settlers. The original county seat was
Orwigsburg.
 Germans
from Berks County arrived two years before the land was
purchased from the Indians in 1749. This was the scene
of Indian raids and frontier forts in the French and
Indian and Pontiac Wars, and of brief Indian raids
during the Revolution. Necho Allen in 1790 discovered
that anthracite coal would burn, and Col. George
Shoemaker proved in 1812 that it could fire a rolling
mill. In 1822 the first shipment of anthracite on the
Schuylkill Canal spurred mining. The county has some of
both the Southern and Middle anthracite fields. From
1880 to 1940 it was second only to Luzerne in
production. In 1842, the Reading Railroad arrived, but
the canal carried coal also until 1881. A second
generation began mining the northern area using inclined
plains. The railroads owned the majority of the mines.
Mining technology was first worked out in Schuylkill,
also the scene of early mine labor troubles. Pottsville
did not develop an anthracite elite comparable to
Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Mauch Chunk, because most of
its capital came in from Philadelphia. The coal strikes
of 1902 and 1925–1926 destroyed consumer confidence and
alternative heating fuels cut into anthracite’s market.
Despite a World War II revival, the industry collapsed.
The population peaked at 235,505 in 1930. Strip mining
began shortly after 1900. Bootleg coal operators
prevailed between 1930 and 1940 due to the collapse of
the old corporations. In the heyday of anthracite
production, the county competed with Lackawanna as the
state’s second-most productive county. In 1990
Schuylkill produced half of Pennsylvania’s 3.4 million
tons. Other county products have included explosives,
textiles, apparel, and shoes. One-fifth of the land is
farmed, and the county has a strong position in the
production of swine and potatoes. |
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