For a time after the American Revolutionary War, the main industry in the Lackawanna River watershed was agriculture, though economic development was difficult to the mountainous terrain between the river and the coast. After the War of 1812, entrepreneurs began to take an interest in the coal reserves in the watershed. Coal was being mined near the tributary Racket Brook as early as 1820. By the 1820s, the Wurts Brothers had formed the Delaware and Hudson Coal Company to mine coal in the upper Lackawanna Valley and ship it to ports in New York. Due to the difficulties associated with building a canal over the Moosic Mountains, the company instead constructed a gravity railroad to transport the coal to the D&H Canal and on to the Hudson River. In the 1840s the D&H Company expanded their mining work further down the Lackawanna Valley, causing many towns in the area to enlarge. Coal mining was eventually done along the center of the Lackawanna Valley all the way from Pittston to Forest City.