Eckley Miners' Village
Foster Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1854 as Fillmore, it was renamed for noted mining engineer Eckley Coxe. It was built to house anthracite coal miners and their families, many European immigrants. Coal patch towns like Eckley were common in northeast Pa. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Colliery operations declined by the 1950s, but the site was restored for the 1970 film The Molly Maguires. Subsequently it was converted to a state historic site operated by PHMC.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in 1854 as Fillmore and soon renamed for mining engineer Eckley Coxe, this village was built to house the workers who dug anthracite coal from the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. Many were European immigrants, and their tight rows of company houses made Eckley a classic 'coal patch' town of the late 1800s. When the collieries faded by the 1950s the community nearly vanished, only to be preserved after it served as a filming location for the 1970 movie 'The Molly Maguires' and became a state historic site.
Why it matters
Eckley survives as a rare intact window into the hard immigrant labor and company-town world that powered America's industrial rise on Pennsylvania anthracite.
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Related people
- · Eckley Coxe
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, PA · est. 1972
On September 10, 1897, hundreds of unarmed immigrant coal miners marched near Hazleton to demand fairer wages and working conditions in the anthracite fields. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the strikers, killing nineteen and wounding dozens more, most of them recent Eastern European immigrants. The bloodshed shocked the nation and became a rallying point for the growing labor movement and the United Mine Workers.
Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, PA · est. 1997
On September 10, 1897, a group of unarmed immigrant coal miners—Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian—marched from Harwood toward Lattimer demanding higher pay and fair treatment. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the peaceful column, killing nineteen and wounding many more. The dead were laid to rest in the ethnic parish cemeteries around Hazleton, and the massacre became a rallying cry for the growing labor movement in the anthracite fields.
Molly Maguire Executions
Jim Thorpe, PA · est. 2006
On June 21, 1877, four men accused of belonging to the "Molly Maguires," an alleged secret society of Irish miners, were hanged here in what came to be called the Day of the Rope. Their convictions rested largely on the undercover testimony of Pinkerton detective James McParlan, hired by coal interests. More than a century later, historians still debate the truth of the labor, class, and ethnic conflicts that drove the case, and even whether the organization truly existed.
Amedeo Obici (1877-1947)
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 2007
Amedeo Obici arrived in America at twelve, an Italian immigrant with no English, and worked a fruit-store counter before rolling out his own peanut cart on the streets of Wilkes-Barre. In 1906 he and fellow immigrant Mario Peruzzi founded the Planters Peanut Company, and Obici's knack for new roasting and processing methods turned a humble snack into a national brand. Planters' monocled Mr. Peanut became one of the most recognized trademarks in the country, and the company ran its headquarters from Wilkes-Barre from 1925 to 1961.