1902 Anthracite Coal Strike, Lackawanna and Schuylkill Counties

I hope that whatever holiday (if any) that my readers observed in the past couple of weeks, it was enjoyable and peaceful for you. Someone needs to keep the chocolate bunnies away from me, personally. This was supposed to have gone up last week, but I was dealing with a stomach bug (unrelated to the chocolate, as far as I can tell) and just didn't have the spoons.

This week's quest took a lot of reading, because it was a big deal and covered in two markers at a pretty fair distance from each other. Frequent contributor Kaylee Lindenmuth, of the Shenandoah Sentinel, was the one to send me both of the marker photos used here - she sent the first one last year, when I asked my readers to tell me about your favorite historical markers, and happened to come across the second fairly recently.

Philip Ginter, Summit Hill, Carbon County

Happy October!

I'm still working on the Carbon County marker book - I expect to be finished before too much longer. So it takes up a lot of my mental energy because I'm honestly quite excited for it. (To quote from the recently released trailer for the back half of the Wicked movie, "I'm obsessulated.")

That being the case, here's another preview for my faithful blog readers, revisiting an earlier post. As with the previous post I've done of this sort, this is not the entire chapter, just a truncated version. I have to save some of the good stuff so people will buy the book, after all!

Sheppton Mine Disaster and Rescue, Sheppton, Schuylkill County

I really, really don't understand how it is November already. We turn the clocks back in a few days, and vote next week, and it just doesn't seem real. On the other hand, the store where I work has been selling Christmas decorations for the last few weeks already, so you could argue that my sense of time is a bit muddled. (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas stuff all crowds together. It's organized chaos at its most festive.)

But it is most certainly the start of November. If you don't already subscribe, you can find the latest issue of my monthly newsletter by clicking here.

Near the end of October, the bff Andrea and I had a day where we were both completely free, so we hopped in my car and took a very pleasant tour of some of our northern counties, enjoying the fine weather and glorious fall foliage. I don't care what anyone else says, for my money it's hard to beat Pennsylvania for sheer beauty in autumn. Of course, the real objective was to collect markers, and I came home with a very satisfying bundle. So we'll kick off the penultimate month of the year by visiting Schuylkill County, and learning an emotionally complex story of both tragedy and triumph.

Eckley Miners' Village, Weatherly, Luzerne County

Recently I did something that I haven't done in a while. As I mentioned last week, the PHMC held a free admission day this past Saturday at all of the historical sites they personally superintend. Well, it happened to work out that nobody was available to go with me for one reason or another, so I ended up going all by myself to my destination of choice up in Luzerne County. I don't often go on quests alone, mostly for health reasons, but I had a great day with beautiful weather and was even able to make a couple side quests to collect additional markers.

My main objective was to pay a visit to Eckley Miners' Village Museum, which I have long wanted to see; and after carefully navigating some hairpin turns up into the mountains, I reached my destination in time to join the 11 a.m. walking tour. Our tour guide was a wonderful retired miner who has been doing research about the region for more than fifty years. He was lovely (I regret not getting his name) and I learned a lot from him. I apologize to my mobile readers, because I took so many pictures in Eckley that this post has more than the usual number.

John Siney, St. Clair, Schuylkill County

As you're reading this, I've just returned from my first-ever visit to Lititz, in Lancaster County. Spent some time collecting markers and learning about pretzels, so you'll see some of the pictures from the trip in coming months.

For this week's quest, though, we're heading into the coal country. Mining coal in Pennsylvania remains a big part of our history, as we've already had occasion to note in this blog, and this gentleman's story is a significant thread in the tapestry.

Ashland Boys' Association, Ashland, Schuylkill County

Today I'm a bit distracted by the fact that it's my grandfather's birthday. He would have been 91 today, and I miss him a lot. He would, I think, really have loved what I'm doing with this blog; he was fascinated by history (that's probably where I get it) and I'm sure that he would have been bugging me to go on marker-hunting road trips with him. But he's the one who taught me to drive, so in a sense he always goes with me.

Of course, I'm not always the driver. On a recent road trip, my husband Kevin was driving; we missed a turn and were in the process of correcting the course when he asked, "Hey, are we near any of your markers?" We were in a Schuylkill County community called Ashland, and I remembered there was one. Much to my surprise, I turned my head to glance up a side street and there it was. So this week's post is a little bit of serendipity.

The Lehigh Canal, Easton, Northampton County

I found myself unable to update last week because of schedule conflicts, as you may have seen on Facebook. I intended to simply delay the post a day or two, but things just kept getting in the way, so I ultimately decided to delay last week's post until next week. Right now I'm sitting in the house listening to tropical whatever-it-is Ida drop a bunch of rain on my area. The worst weather is expected this afternoon, so it's currently a toss-up as to whether or not I'm going to be able to get to work. But at least I'm doing this work, and once this is live I'll be sending out the monthly email too. If you don't already receive that, please consider signing up with the form on this page! I only bother you once a month and it's free.

Since I'm already waterlogged anyway, let's take a ride over to Northampton County and visit the Lehigh Canal. 

American Institute of Mining Engineers, Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County

As I mentioned recently in my post about Colonel Jacob Stroud, I was invited to attend a historical event in Wilkes-Barre. It so happens that the organization celebrating their 150th anniversary also has one of these markers, so this is the perfect time to do my first post from Luzerne County. 

Little Lithuania USA, Shenandoah, Schuylkill County

It was my hope, for this week's post, that I'd get the chance to drive into Berks County and pick up a couple of markers there. Unfortunately, once again, my plans were upset by the arrival of more snow. I'm starting to run out of my backlog of saved markers, so hopefully the worst of winter is behind us now.

Instead, we'll take another nip back to Schuylkill County. Did you know that Pennsylvania is home to the oldest Lithuanian community in the world outside of Lithuania itself?

Mahanoy Plane, Frackville, Schuylkill County

Happy New Year, friends and readers! I hope that this year, there will be more opportunity for me to get out and about to photograph subjects for this blog. I meanwhile have had some people inquire about being guest photographers - if that's something you'd find interesting, thank you! Please send a message to me at markerquestblog@gmail.com and let me know what you have in mind.

Now, let's head for the coal country.

Switchback Railroad, Jim Thorpe, Carbon County

I love this time of year - mostly - but today is an especially gloomy and foggy day here in northeastern Pennsylvania. On the plus side, it's my day off, so at least I don't have to go anywhere.

Today we're going to make one final visit to Carbon County, as this is the last of their markers which currently exist. Perhaps in the future they'll get another and I'll be able to cover the dedication. In the meantime, though, I can mark Carbon County as completely finished on my personal marker list, after I finish telling you about today's subject. 

Pennsylvania is, of course, the site of many "firsts". Some of these are well known; we had the first hospital in the United States, the first theater, the first subscription library, the first zoo. Others are less famous, like the first completely air-conditioned building in the country and the first license plate to display a website address. And then there's today's subject, which was the world's first roller coaster.

Philip Ginter, Summit Hill, Carbon County

Update 10/1/2025: This post has been freshly updated and re-released! Find it here.

For today's adventure, we'll head back to Carbon County - haven't been there in a while - and read about a man whose name is spelled two ways. I first talked about Philip Ginter, or Ginder, in my post about the Carbon County marker, and at the time I promised I'd tell you more about him later. Well, it's later.

Packer Mansion, Jim Thorpe, Carbon County

Before we get into the meat of today's post, I wanted to share a link that was sent to me by Karen Galle, from the PHMC office. She enjoyed my description of the Richard Moore marker dedication and wanted to make sure I knew (and could tell all of you) that there's a calendar on the PHMC website, detailing upcoming dedication ceremonies. If you'd be interested in attending the unveiling of a new marker near you, be sure to take a look and mark your own calendar! Thanks, Karen!

I live very close to the point where the borders of Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon Counties all meet. Jim Thorpe is not too far from me, and I'm rather fond of the quaint little community. We used to drive through it periodically when I was a child, on the way to visit relatives in the nearby town of Nesquehoning, and the view of Jim Thorpe as we would enter it from its southern end has always been arresting to me. Of particular interest to my childhood fancies was the enormous green house with the red roofs, nestled into the distant hills. What was this fairy tale come to life? Who lived there?

Molly Maguire Executions, Carbon and Schuylkill Counties

This is a new one for the blog - the first cross-county post. Throughout Pennsylvania there are a number of markers which are related - either they contain the same information in two different locations (which is the case today), or they're a series of markers which, when put together, more or less tell a story. It's not going to be easy for me to do some of these; for example, there are several markers related to the various canals that will take me a long time to collect. But this one, which has just two, I can do.

Odd as it probably sounds, given the subject matter, I've been looking forward to writing this post. It contains one of the most interesting and obscure pieces of local apocrypha that we have in the Lehigh Valley region. I only waited as long as I did to do this one because I needed a couple of photos from the other location in the story. Now that I have those, here's how we'll finish out the summer - with the deaths of ten men.

Burd Patterson, Pottsville, Schuylkill County

Today we make the blog's first foray into Schuylkill County (that's "SKOO-kill," for those of you who aren't from around here). My youngest sister Liza took me on a drive around the city of Pottsville, which is not far from where she works; we collected a handful of the markers. There's nothing quite like driving around Pennsylvania in an open-air Jeep, so thank you, baby sis!

Among the findings of that afternoon was a beautiful Federal-style mansion on Mahantongo Street, which more than one sign identified as being the former home of Burd Patterson. He turned out to be a trickier subject than I expected.