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EHRENFELD, PA


Mar. 2004 image by author

A railfanning picture with the Ehrenfeld coal town and slate dump in the background. This was actor Charles Bronson's hometown. He was still Charles Buchinski when he lived here with his Lithuanian parents. He even worked as a coal miner here when he was young.


Mar. 2004 image by author

An unusual style of company-built "patch" housing that I have not observed anywhere else. According to Joe, my source of Johnstown area coal history, Pennsylvania Coal and Coke were the original owners of the Ehrenfeld town and coal mine. Later Betheleham Steel obtained the Ehrenfeld operation and operated it as their No. 38 mine before idling it around 1986. Yet another source says that Bethlehem Mines Ehrenfeld mine was actually called the 77B mine, and it closed around 1980.


Mar. 2004 image by author

The forlorn "Slovak Citizens Club" with a patch house and gob pile in the background.


Mar. 2004 image by author

What was probably a boarding house and four room miner's homes.


Image courtesy of Jennifer Marchessault

Ruins of the company store.


Image by Sam Baker

Sam took this picture of one of the portals at Ehernfeld, and he reminds us that this was Bethlehem Steel's Mine. No. 38.


Image by Sam Baker

The other portal at Ehrenfeld.


Microsoft Virtual Earth image

Aerial view of Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania - Part of the huge slate dump at top of photo, part of the patch town on the right, site of former coal mine and prep plant in center, acid mine drainage treatment at lower right, and the Littel Conemaugh River and Pennsylvania Railroad mainline at the bottom of the image. In the name of blooming where one is planted, residents of Ehrenfeld don't mind playing baseball next to an AMD treatment plant.

THE STORY OF A SLATE DUMP / BONEY PILE:


In this 1956 picture the Ehrenfeld slate dump was at its largest, and was even on fire.


By the end of the 1960s the slate dump had been regraded to the elevations that it would hold until the late 2010s.


The slate dump just before it was reclaimed.


In 2019 the slate dump was finally reclaimed as Ehrenfeld looks forward to its post-coal future.


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