Bear Vally Ghost Town, Schuylkill County

[jeff of pa]

Ever here of the town of Bear Valley?
This is the general store for the town of Bear Valley! .....Yes there was a
village that existed near the RCTR Club ! From about the mid 1800's till as
late as the 1960's people lived back the entrance road of the club. In fact
it was about 2 miles farther west of the camp entrance, just beyond the
gates on the "Now - State Game Lands". The village was created to house the
workers of the Susquehanna Coal Co (The ruins of that mine still exist
today) The mine closed around 1930, but some stayed for the solitude of
mountain living. .Nothing of
the town remains today. even the clearing has grown full of trees. Here is
a diagram of the town.





Bear Valley School,
Class of 1916". Yes this town also suported a one room school house.

[jeff of pa]

(Above)This is "Shaft #1" which stood a bit north east of the gates. It was the smaller if the 2 mines and included 2 downward shafts. The coal was brought up and out of the mine and transported by a small locomotive southward to the shaft #2 area.



This "Shaft #2", south west of the gates, had the use of 4 downward shafts. here they never brought the coal completely out of the ground. Instead they brought it up to a tunnel that ran parallel with the ground and moved it south to another service tunnel.

[jeff of pa]

The coal from the 2 mines was then transported through a big service tunnel called "The Wiiliamstown Tunnel". This tunnel was bored completely through the southern side of the Big Lick Mountain. It was over a mile long and some of the miners actually walked through it every day to get to work. Weekends it was used for recreation. On the southern side stood the town of Williamstown and a huge breaker that processed the coal. (Below are some pictures of the Williamstown Tunnel) Because it is now owned by the State Game Commission, they have closed it off for saftey reasons