Harmar Coal Company

When I was a kid, my folks moved the family from the Oakland section of town to a small town in the Allegheny Valley called Harmarville. With money he got from the G.I. Bill dad purchased a ranch style house in a housing development called Chapel Downs. It was suburbia, but our back yard bordered a farm owned by the Panza family and there were woods all around. Harmarville was named Harmar Denny who was named for a Colonial Army officer Josiah Harmar who served with Denny's father in the Revolutionary War. The town itself wasn't much to speak of, it was at the intersection of Pennsylvania Routes 28 and 910 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Two railroads ran through the town, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Bessemer and Lake Erie. Harmarville sits along the Allegheny River across from Oakmont, host of several U.S. Opens. Harmarville and Harmar Township had a strong industrial base, this was a workers town. Some of the industry in the area included Stone Steel, Chemline, Gulf Oil Laboratories, Red Raven Bottling, the PRR and the B&LE Railroads. There was lots of entertainment too, there was the Harmar Drive-In, Harmar Lanes Bowling Allies, Alice's Pool Hall with it's 4.5 x 9 Brunswick Monarch pool tables, there was semi-pro soccer with the Harmar Hurricanes, there were several bars, including a biker bar near the Hulton Bridge where the Harmar Villians hung out. There were at least churches, mine was St. Francis Roman Catholic. There were several streams that fed into the Allegheny River, Deer Creek at Rt. 910 and Guys Run. At the base of Guys Run sat the most dominating feature of the town, Harmar Coal Mine operated by Consol Coal Company, with it's massive tipple and sprawling infrastructure that surrounded a large canal for loading coal barges. There was also a rail connection to the PRR and to move the coal cars around the mine yard the company had a small industrial locomotive. I never saw it in operation, by the time I saw it, it was a rusty heap destined for the scrap yard. It was a Whitcomb Locomotive 25 Ton Diesel Electric.

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