History of anthracite coal mining in Pennsylvania competition with the Schuylkill Navigation Company, until the Reading Railroad eventually leased out the Schuylkill Navigation Company in 1870. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad would become the major carrier of anthracite from the northern fields to NYC (Dublin, Licht, 15-17). While the extensive railroad systems made transporting more efficient, they also lowered the price of coal in distant markets such as Philadelphia and NYC relative to the prices in areas surrounding the mines. In 1840 the wholesale price of anthracite in Philadelphia relative to the mine price was 3.6, and by 1864 the ratio was 1.3. A similar drop
Anthracite iron differently designed furnaces. The first American smelt of Anthracite Pig Iron was performed July 4, 1840 by principal-partners David Thomas, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard at their Lehigh Crane Iron Works in their first hot blast furnace along Catasauqua Creek aided by Samuel Thomas and the employees of the LCIW, in what became Catasauqua in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. The technology enabled industries the chance to produce cast iron sufficient to demand and eventually adapt production to also feed the demand to generate wrought iron and steel. These useful materials are achieved by adding additional processing — by taking pig iron