ABSTRACT
Today, the hills of northwestern Pennsylvania are scarred by strip mining and mountain topping. But 150 years ago they were wilderness. Black bears and wolves roamed the woods, pausing to drink from mountain creeks that ran cold and clear. It was along one of these creeks that Colonel Edwin Drake and his band of explorers clambered in search of oil. The year was 1858, and a youthful United States of America was growing fast, taking the reins of the industrial revolution from Great Britain with the help of a seemingly endless supply of natural resources. Coal from the hills of northwestern Pennsylvania powered the locomotives and ships carrying the U.S. to global preeminence, but coal wasn't easy to get at. In those days before strip mining and mountain topping, deep mining was the only way, and that was dangerous and expensive.
