History
A series of small mining towns were founded along the Georges Creek Valley in the nineteenth century when coal was discovered in the region. This led mining companies in the valley to develop railroads for transporting the coal. Some of these railroads were merged into the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad System between 1853 and 1870. A competing railroad, the George's Creek and Cumberland Railroad, operated in the valley between 1876 and 1917, followed by the Western Maryland Railway.
Most of the original settlers to the Valley came in response to the abundance of jobs available in the coal mines. Many were Irish, but German, Scottish, and Welsh names also are found in the early records of the town.
Coal mining quickly became the most important industry in the Cumberland area. Some of the richest beds of soft, bituminous coal in the country lay within the hills and mountains of this region. After the Civil War, coal became one of Maryland's chief products and exports. Coal from the Cumberland area fueled the state's mills and plants, steamships in Baltimore's harbor as well as the US Navy fleet, and was traded to buyers from London, Brazil, Egypt, and beyond. Primarily Scotch and Welsh immigrants provided the labor force for these mines, immigrating with their families for the opportunities America offered. In the Cumberland region, miners escaped the indebtedness to the mining company that plagued miners in surrounding states. The company store system, in which miners were forced to purchase all their supplies and household needs from the mining company, was outlawed in Maryland in 1868. A comparatively high proportion of miners were also homeowners, as local mining firms found it more profitable to sell houses to their miners, than establish "company" housing.
Since regional coal mines were constructed with horizontal shafts, they were far less dangerous that the vertical shaft mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Still, the regional miners, blackened from head to foot when they emerged from a mine at the end of a day, knew that the carbon-filled air, which corroded the lungs overtime, would lead to an early death.
After World War I, coal production started to decline, and today only some strip mining remains as the last vestige of this once all-important industry. Coal trains once went through the valley every day, but now do so only once or twice a month.
Read more about this topic: Georges Creek Valley
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