A color post card view from around 1907 of the historic Mahanoy Tunnel near Mahanoy City, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.
The following story appeared in the “Glimpses Into Yesteryear” feature in the Pottsville Republican and Herald, 23 March 1979:
For 120 years, this tunnel has carried railroad traffic through Broad Mountain, connecting eastern end of the Mahanoy Valley with the Hassencock Creek Valley. Before the tunnel, the shortest way south from the rich coal fields of the Mahanoy Valley was via the long planes up the side of Broad Mountain at Mahanoy Plane and Gordon.
Situated at the village of Buck Mountain, the Mahanoy Tunnel had an exciting debut when the time came for its opening in 1862. The Little Schuylkill Railway Company, which operated between Port Clinton and Tamaqua, hired Patrick Barry as contractor to build the tunnel. He started the project in 1859, and it took the better part of three years to traverse the peter part of a mile through solid rock. The job worked around the clock in 12-hour shifts from 6 to 6, with an hour for lunch and rest. Men at the heading were paid a dollar a day, and the others received 85 cents a day. When the job was finished, Barry owed his men wages for three months because the railroad company held back $60,000 due for the work. Several attempts were made to run freight trains through, but Barry and his men held them off with cannons buried in the mountainside, one at each end of the tunnel. The company then sent a passenger train up from Tamaqua, but Barry ordered a cannon aimed at the engine, and the engineer took the hint and backed off. Barry heard that the company planned to send trains up from Girardville, but he stopped that by tearing up the tracks from Girardville to Buck Mountain in one day. Next the railroad asked Governor Andrew Curtin to send troops to force Barry to surrender the tunnel, but when the governor heard the other side, he told the company to pay Barry the amount due. Thus the tunnel finally opened, and several years later the giant Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, which had some of the same directors as the Little Schuylkill Company, leased the latter road for 99 years, making it a major route for coal shipments out of the Mahanoy Region. Today [1979], only about one train a day goes through the passage. After the tunnel job, Barry turned to coal mining and operated several drifts on the McNeal Tract near the site of what was to become Barry’s Patch. The site was also known as Barry’s Junction because the Lehigh Valley Railroad branch from Mahanoy City connected there with the Delano-Shenandoah branch. Barry’s Patch is gone now, as is the Lehigh Railroad, but they still linger in memories of the Good Old Days.
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News article from Newspapers.com.
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