Pardee incorporated the Hazleton Coal Company in 1836, the same year the rail link to the Lehigh Valley market was on the brink of being completed. The Hazleton Coal Company built the first school on Church Street, where Hazleton City Hall is now located. Pardee also built the first church in Hazleton (located at the intersection of Church and Broad Streets) and the first private school in Hazleton (located on the south side of Broad Street between Wyoming and Laurel Streets). Ario Pardee died in 1892. The following year (1893), his son, Israel Platt Pardee, built a 3-story, 19-room mansion in Hazleton; it would later be added to the National Register of Historic Places (in 1984).