City boy
Ridin
Last weekend, Nic and I took off to visit the Coal Breaker again, and to explore some more of the anthracite coal area of Pennsylvania. We left Toronto Friday evening, made it down to Williamsport, and crashed at a hotel there for the night. Heading out early Saturday, we went to the breaker, and spent the morning and early afternoon photographing. It was perfect weather, thanks to global warming (bizarrely, it was around +13°C). Unfortunately, I didn’t capture many images I’m terribly pleased with, but that happens – I just wasn’t “on” that day.
When you’re hanging around a long forgotten factory in the middle of a rural area, you don’t really expect to see any life other than maybe nature reclaiming the site (trees, moss, maybe a mouse or two). However, we did run into Shaun O’Boyle, who has been photographing abandoned sites for years. It was really cool to meet him, as I’ve run across his website a few times before while searching for other sites to visit. The power of the Interporn™ strikes again…
We left the breaker around 2 or so in the afternoon, while there was still a couple of hours of daylight, to drive around the western part of the coal seam looking for more sites. Just south of Shamokin, we did find a little “breaker junior” (probably a retail coal sorter and packaging plant), but it was a death-trap: it was all wood construction, and it looks like it’ll fall over with the next strong wind. No way I was going to go in there… I don’t mind taking a few risks exploring, but sometimes you know it’ll just end in tears.
As the light was fading, we decided to call it a day and find a hotel. The plan for the next day was to follow Rte 219 back to Canada, which would take us through a good portion of Pennsylvania and all the way through western New York state. So, we went to State College (the literally named town where Penn State University is located), and found a place to stay just off campus. Most importantly, there were a couple of restaurants to choose from that weren’t roadside diners. After dinner, we found a bar to grab a beer. Ended up talking to a couple (who were up visiting their son), and coincidence strikes again: they were originally from the area around [Anonymous] Breaker! Of course, we ended up talking for an hour or so about the area, and got a few tips about other places around Pennsylvania.
Next morning, we headed south to Altoona (based on tips from the bar conversation), but it was a bit of a bust. Things have been cleaned up a lot there, and it’s either operating factories, or historical plaques. Yippee. However, we did see a lot of “mountain people”, and that was interesting…
Turning back north, we took the 219 as planned. While there were a few interesting operational factories along the way, we didn’t find any abandoned sites. It was a difficult trip though, as it was hour after hour of seeing nothing but crushing rural poverty. All I can say is that it was good to get back home.
We did spy a few interesting places outside of Buffalo, so that might be worth a day trip in the coming weeks (especially if the weather stays as unnaturally warm as it has been). Over all, it was a good trip – at least we now know that we’ve pretty much tapped out that area for photos. Well, unless one wants to document life in an economically depressed rural area – but I don’t think that is something I’ll do.