New to the boards and quite late to the discussion, but I wanted to thank Justin for posting the photographs of the draglines.
The Larksville photographs are especially special for the anecdote behind them. My father grew up in Larksville in the 40s and 50s, and among the many mining stories he's shared, one was of throwing small rocks from the top of the pit so they'd land on the tin/corrugated metal roof of that dragline, which was nicknamed "Big Greenie". The pit in which he specifically recalls the machine working was above State Street in Larksville, where, at its deepest point, the top of the dragline's boom was well below the sides of the pit. He said that, as its name implies, Big Greenie was one of the older machines working in that area.
Going back to the rock throwing, the operator or one of the engineers inside would become startled with the loud bang, come out, curse at them for a while, then continue. His generation was the first (like most in the region at that time) not to be miners, despite being the children and grandchildren of miners, mainly because they grew up when anthracite was well into its post-war decline. (Other stories were of the draglines arriving by train and truck in the area of what now is Wyoming Valley West middle school, their construction, and walking them up the hillside, of them crossing the mountain roads, etc.).
It's also amazing how much has changed in that area. Much of the pits from Route 309 on the east to Avondale on the west has been filled, with only some smaller holes (relatively speaking--they're still quite deep) remaining in and around Larksville mountain and above the Avondale area. Almost nothing remains of the heavy infrastructure where the equipment was repaired (a small concrete pad comes to mind), and the heavy haul mine roads are nothing more than narrow ATV paths.
Again, thank you for posting the photographs. I look forward to spending many hours here learning from y'all.
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