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From a series of articles that appeared in the Pottsville Republican and Herald in 1997:
The Tunnel Colliery was located south of the borough of Ashland on the south side of Mahanoy Creek.
The colliery was opened by a tunnel driven 250 feet south to the North Dip Mammoth Vein by Lewis P. Brock & Company in 1854. That company mined the tunnel for 2,000 feet when the breasts became too short for profitable mining. The first shipment of 5,572 tons was made in 1855.
In 1856, miners sank the slope 360 feet below the water-level gangway to the first level and, in 1857, the company was sold out by the sheriff.
In 1857, George S. Repplier and John Moody purchased the colliery at the sheriff sale and operated it until 1860, when they were sold out by the sheriff.
The Union Coal Company bought the colliery and continued mining the first level to 1864, when it failed. It was succeeded by the Mutual Coal Company, which mined the first level to 1869, when the level had been mined 4,200 feet to its boundaries.
In 1869, Patterson & Eltringham extended the slope 300 feet to the second or bottom level, a total length of 800 feet from the surface. That company mined the new level until 1871, when it failed.
In 1871, Gen. J. K. Siegfried and Stephen Harris leased the colliery and began making extensive improvements. They sank two slopes on the North Slope and the other a pump and tender slope. The hoisting slope was sunk 690 feet to the second level of the old slope. The tender slope was sunk 726 feet to the same level. The colliery was then connected with the old workings of the Pioneer Colliery, and miners began pumping water to the surface from both collieries.
In 1873, the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company began operating the combined collieries with the Tunnel Colliery gangway passing into the Pioneer Colliery, working on a lower level and continuing mining to its boundaries.
In 1879, miners extended the hoisting and pump slope 310 feet to the third level, a total length of 1,000 feet, connecting with the Mammoth Vein by a tunnel 230 feet south.
In 1891, the colliery was abandoned as exhausted. The Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company drove two water-level tunnels 1,170 feet each in 1925 and 1926 at different elevations to recover the unmined coal left by former operations. It continued to mine the veins until about May 1929 to their exhaustion.
The total shipments from Tunnel Colliery were 1,717,691 tons.
