The Wadesville Tunnel

The Wadesville Tunnel was originally part the Danville & Pottsville Railroad - D&P - constructed between 1831 and 1837 (in Schuylkill County Pennsylvania). This was likely the second railroad tunnel to be built (December 1833) in the United States following the Staple Bend Tunnel on the Allegheny Portage Railroad several months earlier in June 1833. There is so little information available to provide a history perhaps because the Tunnel was not used after 1837 like the entirety of the eastern segment of the D&P. 

The D&P was constructed between 1831 and 1837. The D&P began its history in the 1820s when a group of prominent Pennsylvania businessmen joined together to receive a charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to build a railroad to connect the Schuylkill River (at Pottsville) with the Susquehanna River (at Danville).  To design and oversee construction the investors hired Moncure Robinson, the prominent civil engineer.  He had previously been employed by among others, the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

Work began on the eastern segment of the D&P on April 9, 1831. The tunnel cutting actually began on December 12, 1831. The Tunnel was to connect the recently opened (on April 19, 1831) Mount Carbon Railroad at the Tunnel's southern (eastern) end, proceed under Mine Hill into the Mill Creek Valley. Utilizing six incline planes the D&P was to ascend and then descend the Broad Mountain range into the Little Mahanoy Valley to Girardville.  The Girardville connection was important as it would have opened up coalfields (in the mostly undeveloped Second or Middle Coal Field) and timberlands (many owned by one of the D&P’s investors, Stephen Girard).  

The Wadesville Tunnel was located in what was then Norwegian Township (today – New Castle Township).  The Tunnel was approximately 800 feet long and was arched with brick and stone masonry at both ends.  By the time construction began, some St. Clair residents had erected temporary structures in which to initially shelter and board workmen for the Tunnel. Mine Hill was north of but not connected to St. Clair at that time. The opening of the Tunnel (south) connected to the first incline plane.   It was 105 feet high, had a length of 667 feet with an angle of 9 degrees.  This was the second railroad tunnel built in the United States following the Staple Bend Tunnel (also designed initially by Moncure Robinson), which opened in June, 1833.  The contractor that performed the tunneling was Milnes and Company. By the end of January 1832 there were over 300 workers constructing the tunnel and tunneling progress was at 500 feet in August.

Plan and profile of the D&P showing the Wadesville Tunnel - Detailed map of part of Pennsylvania between Sharp Mountain and the Susquehanna River depicting roads, drainage, and relief by hachures along the survey route. Shows the east and west branches of the Mount Carbon Railroad and the Mill Creek Railroad, which began operation in 1829. Chartered on April 8, 1826. Contributor Names - Kennedy, David K., Mapmaker, active 1830-1839, Lucas, William B., Danville and Pottsville Rail Road Company, Philadelphia, 1831.

 

The entirety of the eastern portion of the D&P opened on September 24, 1834.  By 1835 about twenty-five to thirty cars of coal per day ran down the plane from Broad Mountain into the tunnel.  However, the tunnel (and operation) was abandoned after 1837 as it was quite expensive to and not cost efficient to operate.  Mining engineers for the D&P had failed to uncover any suitable anthracite coal deposits (primarily due to the lack of development money available after the Panic of 1837).  The only coal transport revenue came from the mine of Thomas Ridgeway who drilled a coal slope near the west (north) end of the tunnel.

The tunnel itself was built from both ends and met in the middle on December 17, 1833. This was possibly the first tunnel in the world to be thusly constructed.  This method is now used on almost all tunnel projects today. The final cost of the Tunnel was $22,000 (or $737,845, in 2021 dollars).  

After 1837 and with no coal revenue easily available, the eastern portion of the D&P – the Tunnel, the inclines and the track were essentially abandoned.  As early as 1844, Rupp's History of Schuylkill County reported the road's east segment "rotting in the sun”. Later in 1861 the Mahanoy and Broad Mountain Railroad was to connect Mahanoy or Butler townships in Schuylkill County, with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, or any of its lateral railroads.  A connection was made to St. Clair without the requirement of a tunnel.  This essentially duplicated the purpose of the original D&P.

Ash, S.A. and Kynor, H.D., Barrier Pillars in the Southern Field, Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania, Department of Interior, Bureau of Mines, Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1953

The Mount Carbon Railroad Coal traffic through stripping operation (surface mining) caused the east branch (Wadesville branch) to be rebuilt after World War 2. The old D&P tunnel and its Plane 1 above Wadesville was destroyed in this stripping operation.

Bibliography

National Park Service, Staple Bend Tunnell Website

Inkrote, Cindy, Bumpy Start for Danville Pottsville Railroad, The Danville News, January 26, 2009

Danville and Pottsville Historical Marker

Heydinger, Earl, Group V. The Mount Carbon; Danville & Pottsville-Philadelphia & Sunbury; Shamokin Valley & Pottsville Railroads, Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, Volume 107, 1962

Pottsville Miner’s Journal, December 17, 1831

Hoffman, John N., Girard Estate Coal lands  In Pennsylvania, 1801-1884, Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington DC, 1972

The History of Schuylkill County, Munsell, New York, 1881

Heydinger, Earl, The Suppression of "Bad News" About the Early Railroads,  Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, No. 119 (October 1968)

Railway World, Quarto Vol. 9, Number 12, March 24, 1883, Philadelphia

Pottsville Republican, October 28, 1952