Reading Anthracite Company changed its corporate title in 1956 to The Philadelphia & Reading Corporation, of which Reading Anthracite Company was one of its many operating divisions. In 1961, Philadelphia & Reading Corporation divested itself of its anthracite coal interests, selling the Reading Anthracite company to its present owners. The unionized mine suffered an on-the-job fatality in July 2017. Reading Anthracite Company Reading Anthracite Company is a coal mining company based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in the United States. It mainly mines anthracite coal in the Coal Region of eastern Pennsylvania. The company owns the Bear Valley Strip Mine in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Reading
Anthracite difficulty of igniting it. This was a particular concern in smelting iron using a blast furnace. With the invention of hot blast in 1828, which used waste heat to preheat combustion air, anthracite became a preferred fuel, accounting for 45% of US pig iron production within 15 years. Anthracite for iron smelting was later displaced by coke. From the late 19th century until the 1950s, anthracite was the most popular fuel for heating homes and other buildings in the northern US, until it was supplanted by oil-burning systems and more recently natural gas systems. Many large public buildings, such as