Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Patch/Work Voices Project
The
Coal and Coke Heritage Center is located at Penn State's Fayette
Campus in Uniontown, PA. The Center houses industrial artifacts,
oral histories, primary documents, and other materials pertaining
to the rich industrial history of the region.
The Patch/Work Voices project captures and preserves the history
of the coal and coke industry and the culture and heritage of the
bituminous coal miners and coke workers of southwestern Pennsylvania,
focusing on the area known as the Connellsville Coke Region. The
Connellsville Coke Region is a long narrow strip of land averaging
three and a half miles wide and nearly 40 miles long. The region
covers approximately 137 square miles. It is tucked along the base
of the mountains from Latrobe in Westmoreland County to the area
around Smithfield in Fayette County. The era of the Connellsville
Coke Region spans roughly the century from 1870-1970 when it fueled
the fires of industry.
The project serves as a resource center and archives for:
- more than 500 hours of recorded interviews
- mining artifacts, photographs, maps, blueprints, documents,
and scrapbooks
- special library collections of coal mining literature, manuscripts,
essays, poetry, and journal articles
- music, videos, and slide/tape presentations
- art work collection of local and regional artists chronicling
the lives, places, and events of the Connellsville Coke Region
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