Shamokin Stories collection
Reviewed accounts of Shamokin’s people, industries, neighborhoods, institutions, and public life.
Shamokin Water Company’s 1872 incorporation and the beginning of public service in 1873 belong to a longer story that also includes an earlier pine-log line and the later Roaring Creek company.
Wires, operators, and troubleshooting made the telephone a working connection rather than simply a new invention.
More than two hundred patent records connect Shamokin residents with practical inventions for mines, railroads, homes, workshops, and everyday commerce.
An engine, a demonstrated electrical device, and a garment steamer reveal different ways local invention entered the news.
A reviewed Shamokin Iron Works advertisement and surviving period listings reveal the engines, pumps, fans, boilers, castings, and skilled trades behind the anthracite city's industrial landscape.
Local investors brought an Edison central-station system to Shamokin in 1883, carrying electric light from a downtown power plant into streets, stores, homes, and St. Edward’s Church.
In 1929, a one-minute blackout was proposed as the opening act of Shamokin’s tribute to electric light.
A hotel lamp, new customers, and a dispute over gas service reveal how electric lighting entered everyday Shamokin life.