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1891 Map of Pottsville

Name: 1891 Topographic Map of Pottsville
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1939
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1939

About this map

Pottsville serves as the industrial hub of this 1889 survey, where the concentrated rail networks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad converge to serve the anthracite region. The landscape is defined by the rigid parallel ridges of Sharp Mountain, Second Mountain, and Blue Mountain, which dictate the paths of both the Schuylkill River and the numerous branch lines servicing colliery towns. Smaller settlements like Port Carbon, Palo Alto, and Schuylkill Haven are intricately tied to these transport corridors, showing the density of development at the height of the coal era.

Further south, the terrain softens into the agricultural valleys of South Manheim and Upper Bern. Here, the infrastructure shifts from heavy industry to rural life, marked by places like Auburn and Shartlesville. The detailed hydrography, including Wolf Creek and Little Swatara Creek, reveals how water power and valley floor topography shaped the expansion of Schuylkill and Berks counties before the turn of the century.