Scranton, PA news and local guide

Although anthracite coal was already being mined at Carbondale to the north and Wilkes-Barre to the south, iron and steel drove the city's early rapid growth. In the 1840s the brothers Selden T. and George W. Scranton, who had worked at Oxford Furnace in New Jersey, founded the company that became Lackawanna Iron and Coal and later the Lackawanna Steel Company. Their first product, iron nails, failed because of poor iron. When construction of the Erie Railroad in New York was held up by the need to import rails from England, the Scrantons switched to making T-rails for the Erie, and the company soon became a major supplier of rails. In 1851 the Scrantons built the Lackawanna and Western Railroad north, mostly with Irish immigrant labor, to meet the Erie at Great Bend so they could ship rails to New York and the Midwest. They also invested in coal mines to fuel their mills and sell coal, and in 1856 they extended the line east as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western. Sources Wikipedia: Scranton, Pennsylvania