When I was born in the heart of anthracite coal country in the 1950s, coal mines were still operating. Their prospects todayâparticularly after the United Mine Workers of America union just announced their support for a transition away from coalâ look different. Coal has long had a storied history in northeastern Pennsylvania. The region grew fast and rich from the 18th to the mid-20th centuries, with anthracite (âhardâ) coal noted in the area by John Jenkins, Sr. on a map in 1762. An agent of William Penn reported back to London in 1765 that coal was present, noting in an understatement that âthis may sometime be a thing of great value.â Obadiah and Daniel Gore burned the curious âblack rockâ in their blacksmith shop in 1769, and by 1807, the first 50-ton shipment of hard coal had been floated down the Susquehanna River to Columbia, in Lancaster County. In 1808, in a tavern in Wilkes-Barre, Judge Jesse Fell demonstrated a way to kindle this âstone coalâ in a simple grate without the forced draft of a bellows. Together with a Western Pennsylvania bituminous (âsoftâ) coal find in 1752, the Coal Age in America had begun.