Pittston

About Pittston

Pittston sits midway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton in Luzerne County. Settlers tied to the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut reached the area around 1770. It incorporated as a borough on April 30, 1853, and was chartered as a city on December 10, 1894. The name honors William Pitt the Elder, the British statesman.

Anthracite coal built the city. One of the region's first mines opened nearby in the 1770s, and canal and rail links in the 1800s made Pittston a shipping point for hard coal. The work drew Italian, Irish, Polish, and Eastern European families into dense residential blocks. The Twin Shaft disaster killed 58 miners on June 28, 1896. Deep mining collapsed after the Knox Mine Disaster of January 22, 1959, when the Susquehanna broke through into the workings a few miles downriver.