Coal mines, and the company towns that grew up around them, are part of the rich legacy of Pennsylvania's coal culture.

Learn more about life in a company towns through the stories of several nearby company towns and mines.

Mines and Company Towns

IUP Special Collections presents essays and photo collections from mines and company towns in Western Pennsylvania.

Photographs of Eureka Mine No. 37 at Windber, Pennsylvania

Photographs taken of Eureka Mine No. 37 at Windber, Pennsylvania.

Norvelt and Penn-Craft, Pennsylvania

Maps and information about the first subsistence homestead communities in Pennsylvania.

The Company Town of Whiskey Run

For over 50 years, the community of Whiskey Run has been synonymous with violence, secrecy and unsolved murder.

The Company Town of Sagamore

Sagamore started as a "shanty town" for workers constructing rail lines to new coalfields, and quickly grew into a coal town in its own right.

The Company Town of Lucerne

Lucerne was built on the same R&P railway extension as Iselin, and was given its name to honor the home country of Adrian Iselin, Jr., R&P's principal investor.

The Company Town of Iselin

Iselin was an R&P Coal & Iron Company town built to work the Elders Ridge coalfield.

Ernest Mining Plant

The Ernest Plant was a coal mining and coking operation opened in 1902 by the R&P Coal and Iron Company.

The CBC Community of Commodore: A New Kind of Coal Town

A history of one of the planned mining communities build by the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation.

Clymer Looking Back

A reprint of a 1980 article about Clymer's Diamond Jubilee, marking the coal town's 75th year.