by Robert A. Janosov -*:: *

pidated buildings stand empty and forlorn at the Concrete City provided the best of housing for workers. Located a rutted, overgrown dirt road, isolated from their near Nanticoke in Luzerne County, on the southern tip of

st neighbors. Several bear signs of former use: Pennsylvania's northern anthracite field, it was built in 1911 by stmtion! Ladders! Extinguishers! Others scream with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company's

epithets and slogans--some angry, some sophomoric-of faded Coal Division to house mine workers at its Truesdale Colliery. causes and bygone radical movements. A swastika affronts Until abandoned in 1924, Concrete City~constructed entirely of visitors. Obscenities abound. There is little evidence that these poured concrete, hence its name~represented a new and buildings were once known as a "garden city," both an unusual approach to building construction. acclaimed model of industrial housing and a stratagem to Concrete City emerged during the opening years of the promote industrial efficiency. twentieth century, generally characterized as the Progressive Era.

This place, this odd cluster of burned-out, bombed-out It was an exhilarating time during which many Americans buildings, is all that remains of Concrete City. During its heyday, attempted to reform the conditions of a maturing industrialized

originally expressed in 1910, were intend- million tons in 1924. In 1917, the year ed for application primarily in the workplace, but a veritable America entered'world War I, one hundred million tons were efficiency mania swept the country. Taylor's ideas were popular- produced. The industry, begun by local entrepreneurs and ized by the press, and a rash of "efficiency experts" emerged , became increasingly dominated by

the most powerful of which were large

that his principles could be applied to the management of homes, farms, churches, universities, and government.

The pervading spirit of social reform and efficiency led many

...'..- - -- --- - - - --- - -- - - - -....--.- --- -2 - -

occurred in relatively" remote areas, employers

found it necessary to provide living accommodations

for workers.

athaci te railroads, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W), the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the Central Railroad of New Jersey, among others, which had been steadily expanding in the region.

The DL&W transported coal on vast interconnecting rail systems to major metropolitan markets and, through extensive " acquisition of coal lands, also mined anthracite. Organized in the mid-nineteenth century, the railroad acquired coal opera- tions throughout the northern anthracite region, and by the 1870s its holdings included twenty-five thousand acres of the richest and most accessible fields in the entire anthracite

employed more than seventeen hundred workers. According to the 1914 Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, it was the only "operation in the anthracite coal fields that has shipped to market over one million tons of coal in two successive years." By 1924, twenty-one hundred worked at Truesdale, representing nearly thirteen percent of Glen Alden Coal Company's work force.

It was in this charged milieu of frenetic industrial expansion, tumultuous social reform, and evolving management efficiency that Concrete City was conceived. It would, however, be com-

uch early industrial develop- t occurred in relatively remote

provided for workers by American up to the time. Company housing is d as industry in the United States.

dations for workers

eness was certainly regions.

The monopolistic nature o

Court ruled that the virtually identical. F

the DL&W remained

The Glen Alden Coal Comp predecessor had established in the more than --five millio

century was d d , inexpensive, and standardized. TJx U.S. Bureau of Labor EiWstks noted "the chief char@eWc notice- able in every w q a n y t o m is i ts unifomity." Most of the houses were of a frame c~nstm&m, ad, if W k d , were d a standard color. Little a&ention was given b s u m o m ~ g s , which were ofken unheal+hy. Two-Wds of the h a w s analyzed in the bureau's 1916 ahdy ~onkaiwd f m , five, or six r o o m sixty-ninq pacent rented for b k &t d ~ U m a mwth, Appmkmately forty permt of t k s e dweMgs lacked " b i d e san&wy wnve- nitmxs,'' m d only bur percent had "gas or electric light and running water inside." using the most & pmg and construction techniqles

Similar conditions were reflected in the company housing of available. Concrete Ciq was one of those rare attempts, yet it the anthraate region. Nearly w-seven percent of the houses had relatively little e&ct on the broader t 5 m m s b e s , since it were built before 1890; ninety-eight pexent were frame bdd- ' affected vqy fw employees of a smgle company. Housing ings. Many of the houses built in the nineteenth century had cofidi~ons iqq&w& more through a gradual increase in home only two or three room and were often classified as "shanties" ownership by wph&#mq by bet, p m p s i v e intervention by county assessors. They were rarely painted or plastered, and on the pa4 of afforded little privacy. Occupants bathed in kitchens and fardy Corn- ity began in Sptemkr 1911. members slept together in one bedroom. Gradually, many of Twenty double buses were built on a thty-nine a m tract

aperimented with the material

as one whch would satisfy the "newly awakened,

irresistible demand for vastly increased economy

and efficiency'' &*

within view of the Truesdale Colliery. (The company ' apparently planned to build forty hollow-tile houses near the concrete houses, but they were never built.) The concrete houses were sited around a rectangular area measuring three hundred and seventy-five by four hundred and h t y feet. Four dwellings were erected on each of the short sides and twelve on each long side. The houses faced inward to overlook a central park. The two-story, two-family houses measured f&y by twenty-five feet, and each unit had a forty by one h u n b d and f&y foot lot. Each had a flat concrete roof covered with slag roofing, rain gutters and

the construction of walk of various width, and could be used for concrete posts as well. Using these platesl an en* house could "be constructed wholly in one day." Or, as was the case at Concrete City, ody two belts of plates were used, a lower one "to protect the concrete which has already been placed," and the upper to mold newly p o d comte . The molds were hinged together and could be lifted to the next stage without being entirely disconnected.

Another innovation used at Concrete City was a "concreting train." As the site was cleared and graded, a railmad track was laid around the rectanguh area and building materials were hauled in by train. A writer for Coal Age observed that "a mixing plant was mounted upon a flat car with an elevator for hoisting concrete attached. Cars of sand, cement and cinders were attached to the mixing car, and the concrete was hoisted from the mixer to an elevated hopper, from which spouts conducted the mixture into steel forms at various parts of the building." When the concrete of each level hardened sufficiently, workmen hoisted the pre-constructed forms to the next level and the train pro- gressed to the next structure and poured another belt of concrete. The procedure was repeated until the house was completed.

Each residence had seven rooms: a living room, dining room, - - floor, and four be&m on the Land.

slab suspended over the fmnt and rear doom , each had a pantry and cellar. Although twenty-five-foot-wide road "graveled and original design included an open back provided with gutters" separated the rch off the kitchen, the porches were residences from the communal centr y enclosed, providing park. r small room. The kitchen

The use of concrete as con- equipped with a combination struction material for housing dry tub-sink and a coal had grown in popularity at the g range with a hot water beginning of the twentieth No toilet facilities were century. Promoted by the ed inside, but concrete cement industry, it was use ouses, containing both the a wide range of housing typ and a coal bin, were built from moderate middle-class d each house. A coal homes to opulent mansions fo mated between the living the wealthy. For working-class m and dining mom augment- - housing, it was considered to be heat p x r i t e d by thi "durabie, sanitary and fire-re and would "better te the potential problem of of the laboring clas and America experh material as one which woul "newly awakened, irresisti vastliincreased economy and effiaency" housing in the distance. foundations upward into the building, the in "industrial and social development." lowest course is mixed with crude oil." Reinforced conuete was used in the r e v o l u t i o ~ design of an One precaution included the plastering of interior walls. These "Industrial City" exhibited in Europe by architect Tony Garner in methods were not entirely success^. In 19201 the Bureau of 1904. At the same time, worki in^'^ cottages" of precast Labor Statistics reported peeling piaster and paint. (Blistering of concrete slabs were successfdy erected by New York architect exterior paint i s visible in one of the company's official pho- Grosvenor Atterbury for the Sage Foundation in New Jersey. In tographs made in the teens.) A woman who lived in Concrete Pennsylvania, "poured-in-place'' concrete houses were built in City as a child mently recalled her father's shirts freezing in an Donora's "Cement City," laid out by the h r i c a n Steel and upstairs closet, requiring her mother to iron them before he Wire Company for middle management workers in 1916. Precast codd go to work. concrete houses were also constructed in Lansford, Carbon Upon the complex's opening, the company gave careful County, by the khigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1918. attention to its maintenance. The houses were painted white and

The construction process at Concrete City was particularly trimmed in dark p e n . Trees and shrubbery were planted, and innovative in the use of a system of portable steel molds. The system was designed and patented by the Brooklyn, New York, architectural firm of Read and Morrill, Inc., one of the firms To$cilitate the mctbn ofswh an innovative cmpund, a "concreling experimenting with concrete construction techniques. Two foot train" (tiacing page) was employed to haul building materials a d square plates were secured together to form a tightly sealed box equipment to the site. The train caught the attention of Coal Age, which which was filled with concrete. These molds were adaptable to described how $and, cement, and ci&s were delivered to the area.

tial section," coal company

efficiency &o yielded an

exclusiveness based on job classifiation, shtus in the

workplace, and ethnicity .

impact c v o t be viewed as the exclusive reason for the company's investment. Without denigrating the DL&W's impulse for humani- tarian social reform completely, a more likely reason for the construction of concrete City seems to have been the promotion of industrial efficiency by the creation of a superior living environment, close to the workplace, for employees perceived as vital to the company. And the Truesdale Colliery, where residents of Concrete City worked, was a record-produc- ing operation.

By providing housing of Concrete City's quality for certain essential employees, the

Years affer the swimming pool closed,$refighters found a new use for it vacing page). In it they set chemicals ablaze in order to practice.

The company stipulated that Concrete City's houses wek to be rented "only to English-speaking workers," a policy which excluded a large segment of the coal region's burgeoning southeh and eastern European population. With few exceptions, such as August Tumell, an Italian, and Slavic workers Wail Fed& and Stephan Franchack, most residents were of British, Welsh, or Irish background. These workers and others privileged to live in Concrete City were considered especially desirable employees. "If all the people working at Truesdde were like the people living in those houses," said a foreman in 1914, "it wodd be much easier for me. Labor which has to come by early morning work train is much harder to handle. The houses attract the bettir class of miners who live in them happily and content- edly."

The houses of Concrete City were rented to workers and their families for eleven years until i924, by which time the complex was owned by the Glen Alden Coal ~ o m ~ a n y . Rather thaneinstall a sewer system r e q ~ d by the township, the company

troy the bkIdings. ?he iompany the cost to install sewers-two hundred

usand dollareprohibitive, and demoli- of Concrete City began in December

4. Accordinz to a Glen Alden Coal

efficiency also yielded an ars the property was used exclusiveness based on job the Luzerne County

lunteer Fireman's Association workplace, and ethniaw. fire and rescue training

Concrete City's insulai$y are confirm explicitly by an examination of comm

indicates the men were selec in afiey a timely intervention of the Pennsylvania who held key positions at the colliery. young boy had drowned. ?distorical and Museum Commission "These were the foremen of the high (PHMC), however, saved the buildings. In producing veins, the technicians and shopmen," considered 1992, the PHMC approved a state historical marker commemo- essential to the Truesdale Colliery's record production, a local rating Concrete City, but a co-sponsor is needed for its erection newspaper reporter noted in 1939. and dedication. Vandalism and land subsidence continue to take

James McGuire, chief of the power plant, and Anthony Early, a heavy toll on the s t r u c W . Once tidy flower beds and orderly chief clerk at the colliery, lived in Concrete City. So did firebosses vegetable gardens have been overrun by weeds and brambles, William Dixon, James Murray, Charles Speary' and John The old swimming pool overflows with debris. The grounds are Williams, individuals responsible for detecting dangerous littered with junk. Local target shooters have riddled many of the accumulations of deadly gases in the mine. Otto Pomerinlcle, a buildmgs with bullet holes. The anthracite region's once beauti- driverboss who supervised the underground transportation ful garden village is s lovdy4unk by chunk' piece by piece, bit crews and the movement of coal to the surface, called Concrete by bit-fading into oblivion and may before the very eyes of City home. Joseph Reynolds, outside foreman "in charge of all today's generation, disappear forever without a trace. + colliery operations on the surface" at Truesdale Colliery, resided in the io&plex, as did Thomas Lewis, head electrician,- and John Allen, a carpenter and machine shop boss. Concrete City residents also included engineers who operated the company's locomotives, and blacksmiths, electricians, and carpenters who labored in the DL&W's extensive repair shops.

While men enjoyed their fawwd status at the colliery, and w m took great pride in their new houses and gadens, the chi ldm of Concrete City relished their phygr~und (facing page), located in the central park. Today, the abandoned playground is littered m'th debris and junk.

FOR WFKFIEUIREADING Bodnar, John. Anthracite People: Families, Unions and Work,

Garner, Job S. The Company Town: Architecture m d Society in the Early IdwWl Age. New York: O@rd University Pwss, 1992. Munn~sson~ Leifir. Hassing by Emp€oye in the United States.