Green Mountain Coal Basin

I have been thinking a lot about the mountains over the last year and a half since I made my discovery. That was my happy place. It was the only place I was happy as a child. I wanted to share some information about the area. There isn’t much out there at all.

The place I went when going to the mountains was located on and surrounded by mostly abandoned coal mined areas. The lakes were abandoned strip mines filled with water. They supported fish just fine, but you could tell the ones that had the acid mine drainage water flowing into them. The water was a different color, and not much would really grow in or near the water except a few weeds. All these years later, I realize it’s because that was terrible for the environment.

Needless to say, I had endless fun playing in the dirt and on the rocks on the “hills.” I did love imagining the history of the area. Older people said the deepest lake had equipment still on the bottom because it flooded so fast. If you went on to the adjoining properties, you could find more abandoned strip mines, some filled with water and some dry. Lots of trash around from illegal dumping.

Areas west and southwest of there had 3 abandoned deep mine drainage tunnels. I was told there was a fourth but never managed to find it. As a reference on a map, the closest town to these tunnels was Sheppton.

The interesting thing about them is that the water table was lower, so the strip mines didn’t have much, if any, water in them in the areas of those tunnels. These tunnels were built specifically to lower the water table.

The Catawissa Tunnel was one that went east from the side of the mountain and the first one I remember seeing it when the family walked to find it after being told it was there. The front of that one was still open 30 years ago, but it had a rusty old gate. This one had quite a bit of water coming out of it every time I was there. The rocks were all stained orange. It was collapsed a little way inside from what you could see from the outside. This tunnel was only several hundred feet long according to Wikipedia.

A bit uphill from that, you could see some old foundations about 2 or 3 strip mines north of there. I was told that those foundations were of the company town when the mines were operating. I think it was called Green Valley, but I could be remembering slightly wrong. I remember my dad wanting to go metal detecting there. Near the foundations there were a couple of fruit trees. Apple, I think. I used to wonder if that was left from when the buildings were there.

The black dirt road that went through the area, from what I was told, had been a railroad at one time. The people who lived in Green Mountain would go to church on the train. Even when I was there, there were no real signs of it.

A little downstream on the Catawissa, it went down into a deep valley, and on the other side of that was another tunnel. There were waterfalls, if I remember correctly, and an amazing view of the mountains.

The Audenried Tunnel was the next one downstream and much bigger, although the entrance was collapsed all the times I saw it. In the few times I was there, I noticed there were more landslides as time went on. The water was orangish, and the rocks were all stained. Plants didn’t grow in the water at all, and it smelled like sulfur. You would never see fish or any animals in the water. Funnily enough, upstream from the tunnel there was a natural part of the stream that had trout in it. That’s probably why it was known as the sulfur mine. I was told that it was big enough that you could drive a truck through it. That seemed reasonable by the size of the timbers that would be lying around in front of it. This one by far had the most polluted water coming out of it.

The last drainage tunnel was the Spring Mountain Tunnel. That one always had very cold air coming out of it, and the water was cold. On a hot summer day, we’d ride our quads down to it and hang out there. It was not collapsed like the others, and you could go in it. It was really interesting to see the solid rock walls and how the rock changed as you went it. I realize that was probably not the smartest thing to do, but I used to have pictures from inside. If I can ever find the pictures I have of this stuff, I will upload them.

It was a shame to see what happened to the natural aspect of the land, but I did enjoy riding on the hills and sandpits. Most of this information came from the older guys I knew at the mountains, especially “Kelly.” He was such a great person and so knowledgeable about the area. He grew up working in the mines, so I guess he should know a lot.

The road going to this area always intrigued me because it turned black and was fairly straight and level. Kelly had said it was a railroad at one point that ran all the way from the mines to, I think, McAdoo. I said that one time the coal in the bed caught fire. That was long before my time up there. I saw only the road using it.

Now, some of this area is owned by the state of Pennsynania. It is part of the Catawissa Recreation Area. If I can ever bring myself to go back to my past, I may just want to visit the area and explore it. Back in those days, it was a private property with, I guess, an investment company owning it, so we just went there from 8 Bees. Later, Paragon Off-road Park occupied the non 8-bees land.

I used to have a lot of this written elsewhere, but I decided to move it into this one place and made this post and edit it and consolidate things. I will edit and add to this as I think of things. It’s more like a living post than just a one-off post.