Anthracite mining shaped Schuylkill County for generations, honoring past, present, and future miners and especially the many men and boys who lost their lives in the mines. Boys worked in the breaker picking slate from coal, adolescents worked doors, led mule teams, or threw spragues between coal car wheels, young men helped dig and load coal, and miners drilled, set charges, and blasted coal loose before many injured older workers returned to breaker work. Anthracite, or hard coal, was known and used by Indians and local settlers well before Necho Allen "discovered" coal on Sharp Mountain outside Pottsville in 1790, and once people outside the region learned it would burn, Schuylkill County entered boom times in the 1820's and 1830's. Locally mined coal heated Philadelphia homes, fueled the Industrial Revolution, and helped win the Civil War and two World Wars. Though fewer mines remain than in earlier years, the industry continues as a vital part of the region's culture and economy, and Schuylkill County and the nation would be different without the miners' labor above ground and deep underground to extract anthracite, a work that brought injury and death to many over the years.