Anthracite continues but now on a smaller scale. In the United States, anthracite coal history began in 1790 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, with the discovery of coal made by the hunter Necho Allen in what is now known as the Coal Region. Legend has it that Allen fell asleep at the base of Broad Mountain and woke to the sight of a large fire because his campfire had ignited an outcrop of anthracite coal. By 1795, an anthracite-fired iron furnace had been built on the Schuylkill River. Anthracite was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel in the US on 11
Anthracite iron technique & process, which he had conceived in an attempt to improve the efficiency of conventionally fueled furnaces. The first person to employ the hot blast technique to anthracite smelting was Dr. Frederick W. Gesenhainer, who filed for a patent on the process in 1831 and received it in 1833. In 1836, he tried smelting anthracite iron on a practical scale at his property, Valley Furnace, near Pottsville, Pennsylvania, while in the same year White & Hazard's LC&N Co. built two experimental blast furnaces in Mauch Chunk. He produced a small quantity of iron, but due to mechanical breakdowns, could