History Of Wilkes-barre

3 Pages 825 Words

During the early 1700's various Indian tribes, such as

the Shawanese, Delaware and Nanticoke, settled in the valley

of Wilkes-Barre. In 1768, a group of Yankees, led by Major

John Durke, built Fort Durkee near Ross Street. They named

the area for John Wilkes and Iasaac Barre. Several battles

took place in the following years, but the Yankees were

finally recognized as the owners of the land. By the turn of

the century, the area had a Newspaper, a post office, and

court house.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's, hundreds of

thousands of immigrants came to the region to work the

anthracite coal. This transformed the Wyoming Valley from an

isolated farming area to a metropolis. However, the costs of

extracting the clean-burning coal from the deep mine shafts

were great in human and environmental terms. One out of

every four mine workers was a boy. Boys as young as 7 worked

the breakers, sorting out rocks from the coal. When mining

was at its peak in this area, almost every day the papers

carried an account of someone being killed. The most common

injury was from fallen rock.

The success of coal brought a steady stream of

entrepreneurs who grew very rich and powerful. J. C. Atkins

built the Wilkes-Barre Lace Manufacturing Co., and Fred

Kirby opened his first five-and-dime stores at 172 E. Market

St. Men like Charles Parrish and the Coxe brothers owned

mines, powder mills, timber companies, and railroads. In

1857, Charles Stegmaier began brewing beer on Hazle St, and

he was turning out over two hundred thousand barrels a year

by 1916. Silk and garment mills became major employers for

mining woman with companies such as the Empire Silk Mill

importing silk from Japan. Richard Jones, a mill worker,

founded Vulcan Iron Works on S. Main St. in 1849, which grew

to one thousand six hundred employees, producing loc...