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In 1791, in what is now Summit Hill in Carbon County, a miller named Philip Ginder was searching for a new millstone when he found a black, shiny rock. Having heard of “stone coal,” he took the chunk to a blacksmith and lo and behold, it burned.
From this simple act, Ginder launched what would become Pennsylvania’s powerful anthracite mining industry. His accidental discovery would ripple through two- and-a-half centuries, affect countless generations of families in both the United States and abroad, give rise to the American Industrial Revolution, and even play a part in the winning of two world wars.
Coal is the reason many area towns sprouted. It’s the reason Bethlehem Steel became an international industrial force. And, the reason the Lehigh and Delaware Canals made such a huge impact on this region’s development.
Anthracite is also known as “stone coal” because of its rock-like hardness. It is created over millions of years as countless layers of sediment compress plant debris in swamps until it becomes hard. As the landscape heaved and buckled over the eons, creating the Appalachian and Pocono Mountains in the process, anthracite appeared atop hills and waited under valleys in seams or veins two to 12 feet thick.
In 1988, because of anthracite’s historical importance and its rich and distinctive impact on both cultural and natural resources, Congress designated the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. Its backbone is the D&L Corridor, a 165-mile path stretching from the coal-rich, forested mountains of Wilkes-Barre to Bristol near the Atlantic Ocean. This route winds through the Wyoming, Lehigh and Delaware Valleys.
