FROM DEEP MINES TO STRIPPINGS TO WAL-MART: GEOLOGY AND ANTHRACITE MINING HISTORY OF THE ST. CLAIR AREA, SOUTHERN ANTHRACITE FIELD, SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA—A TRIBUTE TO ANTHONY F. C. WALLACE, AUTHOR OF ST. CLAIR (1987)

The historic coal-mining town of St. Clair is located at the foot of Broad Mountain on the north edge of the Pottsville Basin. Anthracite was first discovered on the south flank of the mountain in 1790. The first significant mining began in the early 1830s, about the time the town was laid out along Mill Creek, a south-flowing tributary of the Schuylkill River. Over the next 3/4 of a century, St. Clair grew into one of the important mining centers in the Southern field.

Geologically, St. Clair lies in the northern part of the complexly folded and faulted Minersville Synclinorium and is entirely underlain by the coal-bearing Pennsylvanian Llewellyn Formation. The most important coal beds mined are (descending order) the Diamond, Orchard, Primrose, Holmes, Mammoth, Skidmore, and Buck Mountain. Just south of St. Clair, the coals incline precipitously south into the basin, soon reaching uneconomical depths—a fact recognized as early as 1838 by H. D. Rogers of the First Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1836–58), but hotly contested by contemporary Pottsville boosters. In 1857, marine(?) invertebrate fossils were first discovered in the Southern field by the First Survey in “coal-slate” above the Orchard coal just inside the Ravensdale Tunnel near the Pine Forest Shaft, a mile east of St. Clair.

Between the mid-1820s and 1870s, numerous deep mines were established in the St. Clair area. Because of complex geology, incompetent mining methods, and numerous accidents, most of these mines operated intermittently. By the 1860s much of the settled area of St. Clair was undermined, with mine depths eventually reaching 500 ft or more. In the 1870s, the Reading & Philadelphia Coal & Iron Company (P&RC&I) acquired much of the area’s real estate, and the era of consolidation began. The most important later deep mines were the Wadesville Colliery of the R&PC&I Company in the west part of St. Clair, and the operations of the St. Clair Coal Company in the north part, beginning in 1885.

Most deep mining ended in the St. Clair–Wadesville area by the 1940s, though some continued until 1957. Strip mining began about 1900, with operations eventually developing at St. Clair, Pine Forest, and Wadesville (where activity continues). Reading Anthracite leased the St. Clair tract to Wal-Mart in 1999, with the Coal Creek Commerce Center being erected soon thereafter.