Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Locally based Anthracite Living History Group also celebrating Coal Mining History Week.
Zack Petroski poses wearing some Pennsylvania anthracite coal mining artifacts.
DON CAREY/THE TIMES LEADER
PITTSTON – The Anthracite Living History Group is led by two 19-year-old college students – Eric Bella and Zack Petroski – who share an interest in preserving the region’s mining industry heritage.
The group is sponsoring several events to celebrate Coal Mining History Week, focusing on the 52nd anniversary of the Knox Mine Disaster.
Petroski, of Sweet Valley, is the co-president of the group, and he said Tuesday that he and Bella, of Shavertown, are passionate about preserving the story of the mining industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“We want to get the word out that this is our heritage,” Petroski said. “We want people to know this is where we came from.”
Bella is a student at Penn State University and Petroski attends Luzerne County Community College. The Anthracite Living History Group was formed in 2006.
“We always heard stories from our relatives – our grandparents mostly – of what it was like to work in the mines,” Petroski said. “We got involved with the preservation of the Huber Breaker – the last one you can still see – and that experience made us really think of our heritage.”
Petroski said he would love to see an anthracite museum in the Wyoming Valley; he thinks it’s something the area needs for people to appreciate how the region grew.
“I’ve heard many stories of what these people did day in and day out,” Petroski said.
In conjunction with the 52nd anniversary of the Knox Mine Disaster on Saturday, the group has scheduled the following mining-history related activities, which are open to the public free of charge:
• Saturday, 4:30 p.m.: Annual Knox Disaster memorial Mass at St. John’s Catholic Church, Williams Street, Pittston.
• Saturday at 6 p.m.: Panel discussion on the Knox Disaster featuring Audrey Calvey, daughter of Knox victim John Baloga; Samuel De Alba, chairman, Knox Disaster Monument Committee; William A. Hastie, former Knox Coal Co. employee; and Joseph Panzitta, former anthracite coal operator, at St. John’s Catholic Church Parish Hall, William Street, Pittston. Refreshments provided.
• Sunday, 11:15 p.m.: Memorial commemoration of the 12 Knox disaster victims, in front of the old St. Joseph’s Church – now Baloga Funeral Home – Port Griffith.
• Sunday, 11:45 a.m.: Gathering and commemoration at the Knox Disaster break-in site along the Susquehanna River Trail, Port Griffith, one-half mile north of the 8th Street Bridge.
• Sunday, 2:30 p.m.: Knox Disaster history program at the Anthracite Heritage Museum, McDade Park, Scranton; presentations by John Gadomski and George Mazur, the last two Knox disaster survivors; De Alba; and Robert Wolensky, professor at King’s College who has written about the disaster. Refreshments provided.
• Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.: Presentation by Hastie and Wolensky on “The Pennsylvania Coal Company and the Subcontracting System: Italians, Wildcatters, and the Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1916,” at the Earth Conservancy Building, Main Street, Ashley. Sponsored by the Huber Breaker Preservation Society. Refreshments provided.
• Saturday, Jan. 29, 2:30 p.m.: Presentation by Hastie and Wolensky on “The Labor Wars of 1928: Rinaldo Cappellini, Alex Campbell, and Industrial Conflict at the Pennsylvania Coal Company,” at the West Pittston Presbyterian Church. Sponsored by the West Pittston Historical Society. Refreshments provided.
For more information, call Bella at 855-2224, or Petroski at 574-3031, co-presidents, Anthracite Living History Group.
Historical marker
The text on the marker at the site of the Knox Mine Disaster:
On January 22, 1959, twelve men died in a tragic accident at the River Slope Mine near this site. The mine had been illegally excavated beneath the Susquehanna River at the direction of the Knox Coal Company. When the force of the ice-laden river broke the thin layer of rock, over ten billion gallons of water flowed through this and other mines. This disaster ended deep mining in much of the Wyoming Valley.
Those who died:
Samuel Altieri, John Baloga, Benjamin Boyer, Francis Burns, Charles Featherman, Joseph Gizenski, Dominick Kaveliskie, Frank Orlowski, Eugene Ostroski, William Sinclair, Daniel Stefanides, Herman Zelonis.