The New Student's Reference Work/Pottsville, Pa.

Potts′ville, Pa., a borough, the capital of Schuylkill County, on the river of the same name, in the rich anthracite regions, 35 miles northwest of Reading and 92 northwest of Philadelphia. It was at Pottsville furnaces that hard coal was first successfully used for smelting purposes in 1839; it continues to be notable not only as a shipping-point for anthracite but as an industrial center; there are rolling, spike and planing mills, stove foundries, nut and bolt factories, machine and engine shops, silk, skirt and stocking factories and breweries. Buildings of prominence are the county court-house, the jail, a public hospital and Pottsville Athenæum. There are a school library and a county law-library, an admirable public and parochial school-system and a commercial college. Pottsville has the service of three railroads. Population 20,236.