No. 8 Colliery first opened in 1845 and became a mammoth anthracite operation, employing near 3,000 men at its peak in the first half of the 1900’s. The mine had 8 horizontal levels, the lowest more than 1,200 feet below the surface and more than 130 feet below sea level, all reached by cages that hauled miners and coal cars through a vertical shaft. Underground, there were 1,425 mine cars, 24 miles of rails and haulage tunnels, and thirty five eclectic mine locomotives, while 5 steam locomotives operated on the surface. In 1972, a 208 foot steel and concrete breaker was built to replace an earlier wooden breaker destroyed by fire, and this centerpiece cleaned and prepared coal for market, processing more than 7,800 tons of raw material daily and producing 90 railroad cars of anthracite coal. The colliery closed in 1954 as the coal industry declined and other energy sources rose. Located here as the official showplace of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, it began offering public tours in the early 1930s, drawing thousands of visitors, including government leaders, sports legends, and movie, stage, and radio stars, who came to see how anthracite coal was mined and prepared, including a large petrified tree hundreds of millions of years old 850 feet beneath the surface. Remains of this bygone era include the original mine entrance, brick wash shanty buildings, a dynamite bunker, mounds of coal waste, the site of the towering breaker that has since been demolished, a brick bus shelter once used by miners, large chunks of anthracite coal, unique rock formations, and a historic marker to labor leader Mother Jones.