Concrete City
Nanticoke, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Notable for early use of International Style architectural concepts in creating "model" industrial housing. Located 1/4 - mile north of here. The homes, built by the D L & W Railroad's Coal Division for forty Truesdale Colliery employees, were opened in 1913. Constructed of poured concrete, the twenty two-story rectangular double houses surrounded a park. Controlled by the Glen Alden Coal Company after 1921; abandoned in 1924.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1913, the coal division of the D L & W Railroad built an unusual experiment in worker housing north of Nanticoke. Twenty-two identical poured-concrete double houses, arranged around a central park, drew on emerging modern design ideas to shelter miners of the Truesdale Colliery. The community was short-lived, abandoned by 1924, its bare concrete shells left standing.
Why it matters
Concrete City captured the Progressive Era's faith that better-planned industrial housing could improve workers' lives, and its ruins remain a striking monument to that ambition.
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