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
History of anthracite coal mining in Pennsylvania the building of a canal. By 1840, over 250,000 tons of anthracite mined from the region annually reached Philadelphia through White and Hazard’s Lehigh River system (Dublin, Licht, 12-3). A group of Germans wanted to seek the rights to the Schuylkill River. They received a charter in 1815 to incorporate the Schuylkill Navigation Company, which would have control over the Schuylkill River. After receiving investors the Schuylkill Navigation Company was able to finance a 108-mile long river and canal system that connected the Pottsville area to Philadelphia that opened in 1825. By the early 1840s, some 500,000 tons of anthracite