Pottsville from Coal Street | Schuylkill County, 19th century

Pottsville from Coal Street | Schuylkill County, 19th century

In the late 1860s or early 1870s, photographer Amos M. Allen captured this view of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, from a lot along Coal Street. The photograph, now held by the Getty Museum, looks across the growing Schuylkill County seat at a moment of transition. We can date the image to before 1874–1876, since the distinctive spire of the Miners’ Journal building – later a defining feature of Pottsville’s skyline until its collapse during a fire in…