Anthracite League Anthracite League The Anthracite League, also referred to as the Anthracite Association, was a 1924 football league comprising teams based in eastern Pennsylvania. These teams were based in coal mining towns, hence the league name's reference to anthracite coal. The league lasted for just one season, before folding. The teams in the league were the Coaldale Big Green, Wilkes-Barre Barons, Shenandoah Yellow Jackets, the Gilberton Cadamounts, and the Pottsville Maroons. In the years following World War I, the coal mining towns of eastern Pennsylvania produced a number of outstanding football clubs. An annual competition between the locals for the Curran
Anthracite February 1808, by Judge Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on an open grate in a fireplace. Anthracite differs from wood in that it needs a draft from the bottom, and Judge Fell proved with his grate design that it was a viable heating fuel. In spring 1808, John and Abijah Smith shipped the first commercially mined load of anthracite down the Susquehanna River from Plymouth, Pennsylvania, marking the birth of commercial anthracite mining in the United States. From that first mine, production rose to an all-time high of over 100 million tons in 1917. Anthracite usage was inhibited by the