Rush Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

Hometown is a village (a neighborhood, and now a census-designated place (CDP) once having a post office) in Rush Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States that sits astride a crossing point between important transportation corridors. The population was 1,399 at the 2000 census, and excepting for the area near the east–west PA 54 running mostly parallel to the tracks of the Reading, Blue Mountain, and Northern Railroad — once the important east-west shortline Nesquehoning & Mahanoy Railroad — and the PA 54 junction with PA 309.

The Tamaqua Historic District is a national historic district that is located in Schuylkill Township and Tamaqua, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

Tamaqua (, Delaware: tëmakwe) is a borough in eastern Schuylkill County in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania, United States. It had a population of 6,934 as of the 2020 U.S. census.Tamaqua was established from territory from West Penn and Schuylkill Townships. The borough is part of the micropolitan statistical area of Pottsville. Tamaqua is located 37.8 miles (60.8 km) northwest of Allentown, 87 miles (140 km) northwest of Philadelphia, and 125.5 miles (202.0 km) west of New York City.

Nesquehoning Mountain or Nesquehoning Ridge is a 15–17-mile-long (24–27 km) coal bearing ridge dividing the waters of Lehigh Valley to the north from the Schuylkill River valley and the several near parallel ridgelines of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians barrier range all local members of which run generally WSW-ENE in the greater overall area. Nestled above a creek sculpted ravine across from the even less negotiable sides of Broad Mountain the flanks above Nesquehoning Creek reach a sharp bend cut by the water gap of the Lehigh River and merge with the ridge of Pisgah Ridge to the south into a common terminal mountain, Mount Pisgah within sight of the Poconos in a region once touted as "The Switzerland of America" along the eastern edge of the Southern Anthracite Region, all several ridge lines north of Blue Mountain, which in part provides the source waters for Nesquehoning Creek, a tributary of the Lehigh River in the Poconos in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Coaldale is a borough in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. Initially settled in 1827, it was incorporated in 1906 from part of the former Rahn Township; it is named for the coal industry—wherein, it was one of the principal early mining centers. Coaldale is in the southern Anthracite Coal region in the Panther Creek Valley, a tributary of the Little Schuylkill River, along which U.S. Route 209 was eventually built between the steep climb up Pisgah Mountain from Nesquehoning (easterly) and its outlet in Tamaqua, approximately five miles to the west. The town is virtually joined at the hip to nearby Lansford, to its immediate east—as both were founded as company towns on lands owned by and mined by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N) while technically on opposite sides of the county lines. The history, business situation, and fortunes of not just the two, but of three towns, the third being the nearby Summit Hill, located a few thousand feet upslope, were tied in decades of co-development because the LC&N had built the western terminus of the nation's second railroad, the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Gravity Railway to ship coal out, and opened multiple mines throughout Coaldale and Lansford and the rest of the Panther Creek Valley in the days when railroads were coming into their own. The town has a bus stop with a mural on one side reading: "Everybody's Goal Is Mine More Coal" and the other side reading: "A Car More a Day Means More Pay". The area on the western border of the borough is known as Seek. There is a historical marker for Mother Jones located in Coaldale, as she organized many strikes and protests on behalf of coal miners around the country for improved pay, safer work environment and child labor laws. She organized a march for child workers that started in Coaldale and proceeded to McAdoo. At one trial for Mary Jones, a prosecution lawyer famously said, "there sits the most dangerous woman in America... to put down their tools and walk out". Herbert Whildin was elected mayor in 2017.

Quakake Creek (pronounced QWAY-kake) is a 12.0-mile-long (19.3 km) tributary of Black Creek in Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the United States.Quakake Creek (Unami for "pine woods") joins Black Creek near the borough of Weatherly, approximately 4.3 miles (6.9 km) upstream of the Lehigh River.

Packer Township is a township in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 998 at the 2010 census.

McAdoo is a borough and coal town in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States, 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Hazleton and seven miles north of Tamaqua. McAdoo contains the picturesque Silver Brook Meadow. In the past, anthracite coal mining and a shirt factory, the McAdoo Manufacturing Company, provided gainful employment to the populace. The population was 2,477 at the 2020 census.

Kelayres is a census-designated place in Kline Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States on Broad Mountain, just west of McAdoo. Reservoir Number 8 is just west of Kelayres and drains northward into the Catawissa Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River. It is served by the Hazleton Area School District. The local pronunciation of the village is "Key-lar-es" and its ZIP code is 18231. As of the 2010 census the population was 533 residents. Kelayres is in area code 570, served by the 929 McAdoo exchange.

The Kelayres massacre was a shooting attack that took place the evening of November 5, 1934 in the coal-mining village of Kelayres, Pennsylvania. An election-eve parade and rally by Democrats was fired on by multiple shooters as it passed the home of Joseph James Bruno, known as "Big Joe", the local Republican boss. Three victims died almost immediately and two others died over the next two days.The attack received national news coverage, and accounts of it shared the front page with early election news in several major newspapers. The top newly elected Pennsylvania Democrats attended the funerals. Six members of the Bruno family were eventually found guilty of multiple murder charges in four trials, with Bruno and his brother Phil receiving life sentences. Bruno escaped from prison, leading to the then-largest manhunt in Pennsylvania history. He was caught eight months later. All of the Bruno family members were eventually paroled. None ever admitted guilt, and no motive was ever formally established.

The Hauto Tunnel, dug in 1871–72, was a 1.1-mile-long (1.8 km) single-track railway tunnel crossing under the barrier ridge of Nesquehoning Mountain between Lansford, Pennsylvania, in the Panther Creek Valley and the Central Railroad of New Jersey trackage near the dam of the Hauto Reservoir impoundment about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) above Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania. The tunnel was significant for cutting nearly 15 difficult mountainous miles (24 km) off the trip to the Lehigh Canal terminal or, by rail, to other eastern coal companies, in the era when anthracite was the king of energy fuels. Built as a joint venture by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and landlords Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N Co.) shortly after the LC&N board of directors had decided to opt out of the rail transportation business and leased all the railroads it owned or controlled under subsidiary Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad to the CNJ. The tunnel began as a notion when LC&N Co. miners needed to drain water from a higher mine gallery under the Panther Creek Valley and so dug a drainage shaft from the other (north) side of Nesquehoning Ridge into the coal beds under Lansford. Once the tracks were in operation and proven, the tunnel allowed the CNJ to seek permission from LC&N Co. to cease coal shipments to the canal head on the iconic Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad, and to sell off the asset as a common carrier and tourist railway.

Audenried is a village in the northwest corner of Carbon County, Pennsylvania located on Route 309. It is located in Banks Township between Hazleton and McAdoo. It is served by the Hazleton Area School District. The Catawissa Creek starts in Audenried and flows westward to the Susquehanna River. The remainder of Carbon County is in the Delaware watershed. Audenried is isolated from the remainder of Carbon County since travel by road between the two requires driving through Luzerne or Schuylkill County. The village is served by Hazleton Public Transit bus route 20, which runs via McAdoo to Kelayres. It is split between the Hazleton ZIP Code of 18201 and the Beaver Meadows ZIP Code of 18216.