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McAdoo north, Audenreid, Beaver Brook

"They made a desert and called it progress ..."

The nearly abandoned coal fields around the junction of north Schuylkill, east Carbon and southern Luzerne Counties have a sometmes stark beauty all their own, especially in winter. It's somewhat softened in the other seasons, and looks not at all like it used to. One hundred years ago it was being torn up. Fifty years ago it was completely devastated. But the best part of taking these photos is the sky. It has a clarity here that's hard to find elsewhere. These digital camera pictures fully capture the sky colors, even at the low resolution I used for these photos. I took pains to keep the colors as accurate as possible.

The 'banks' shown in the photographs have nothing to do with money. They are hills of slate and rock refuse hauled up from the earth mixed with the coal. They've been a looming presence on the Spring Mountain plateau from the mid 1800s. They've always been called 'coalbanks' locally.

It will take another hundred years for the land to fully restore itself.

More to be added from time to time.

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