The rebirth of a long-shuttered Pennsylvania coal mine

SCRANTON, Pa. — When coal was king and Pennsylvania its throne, a wealthy mine owner wanted to show visitors how the world was heated.

The Brooks “educational” Mine, named after the late Brooks Reese, opened at the turn of the 20th century, when Scranton and other anthracite coal region cities and towns saw their populations skyrocketing. In those days, 330,000 miners produced 277 million tons of coal worth $705 million in the mines northwest of Philadelphia.

By the 1970s, large-scale anthracite mining was all but over in Pennsylvania. Populations plummeted and a growing environmental awareness revealed some of the industry’s toxic legacies. The Brooks Mine, in Scranton’s sprawling Nay Aug Park, was open on and off in the first half of the century, then closed in 1975 when portions of its roof collapsed. Despite calls for rehabilitation, the mine sat dormant, its gate locked, ever since.

That all changed last month, when a group of volunteer coal mining enthusiasts, local officials, and park-goers gathered by those gates and chopped a ceremonial firing cable with an ax.

“We hear so much about how we have to think about the future and plan for the future, but we can’t forget our past,” said Bob Gattens, of Scranton’s Municipal Recreation Authority. “It is part of our history. It might have scarred the land, might have left some bad water we’re dealing with now, but it shaped this city, this county, and everything around from Carbondale down to Wilkes-Barre. It put food on the table.”

Brooks Mine, roughly 150 feet long with a ceiling that’s 7 feet tall, is open to the public for tours, thanks to Underground Miners. The nonprofit, started in 2002, works to preserve the state’s anthracite heritage archives, restore equipment, hold public events, and rehabilitate mines...