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Additions to Shops and Sports pages July 26, 2001
I am currently collecting more information on the Saint Clair Coal Company, the early railroads, names of soldiers in the Civil War, Spanish War, and WWI, St. Clair armory, and census information.
Much of the information on this site I found in the 1950 Centennial booklet that was distributed as a souvenir. I have found that most of this information in the booklet was taken, word for word, from the "History of Schuylkill County, PA" book listed/linked above. Other sources of information are the 1776-1996 Bi-Centennial souvenir booklet, Joseph H. Zerbey History of Schuylkill County-1934, St. Clair : A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience With a Disaster-Prone Industry by Anthony F. C. Wallace ,various articles from the "Miners Journal", the Pottsville Republican, and life-long Saint Clair residents. |
It May Be Hard to Believe That A Scant 100 Years Ago...The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven. Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars. There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph. Alabama,
Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only
the twenty-first most populous state in the Union. The tallest structure
in the world was the Eiffel Tower. The average wage in the U.S. was
twenty-two cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per
