Lackawanna County
Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed August 13, 1878 from Luzerne County, it was Pennsylvania's 67th and last county created. The name is an Indian word meaning "stream that forks." Scranton, the county seat, was made a city, 1866. It became the anthracite coal mining capital of the world.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The last of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, Lackawanna was carved from Luzerne County in 1878, its name drawn from a Native word for a forking stream. Its heart was Scranton, a city that rose on the black wealth beneath it: hard anthracite coal. By the late nineteenth century the region had become, by its own proud claim, the anthracite mining capital of the world, drawing waves of immigrant laborers into its collieries and coal towns.
Why it matters
Lackawanna County stands at the center of America's anthracite empire, the coal that heated the cities and fired the industry of the Gilded Age.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Carbon County
Jim Thorpe, PA ¡ est. 1982
Carbon County, formed in 1843 from Northampton and Monroe, was named outright for the element at the heart of its wealth: the rich anthracite coal beds that fueled America's industrial rise. Its seat began life as Mauch Chunk, a booming coal-shipping town on the Lehigh, and in 1954 took the name Jim Thorpe to honor the great Native American athlete, whose remains were brought there. The renaming stitched a legendary Olympian's memory to a hard-coal town.
First Electric Cars
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 1948
On November 30, 1886, Scranton launched what is celebrated as the first street railway system in the United States built entirely for electric operation, running between the city center and the Green Ridge section. In an age when most urban transit still relied on horses, this was a bold leap into a new technology. The achievement earned Scranton its enduring nickname, the Electric City.
1902 Anthracite Coal Strike
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 2002
In May 1902, roughly 150,000 anthracite miners walked off the job across northeastern Pennsylvania, staying out for six months over union recognition, better pay, and shorter hours. With the nation's coal supply threatened, President Theodore Roosevelt convened the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, which held hearings at the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton and granted several of the miners' demands in 1903.
Coal Miners' and Laborers' Strike
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 2008
On August 1, 1877, the anthracite city of Scranton erupted in violence as armed citizens fired on striking workers, killing four and wounding many, including the mayor. The clash was a local flashpoint of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the nationwide upheaval that spread through cities gripped by the depression that began in 1873. Coal miners and laborers here joined a wave of workers demanding relief from wage cuts and hard times.