CCGT St. Basil Traditional Cache

This Cache is part of the Clearfield County Geotrail cemetery leg. Each cache contains a unique self inking stamp to use in your CCGT passport book, once you obtain 25 CCGT finds your passport can be validated for our commemorative coin. Please be respectful to the cemeteries and only cache from dawn till dusk. Please visit www.visitclearfieldcounty.org/outdoors/geotrail for information on where to obtain your passport book and how to validate your book to receive the coin.

Traditional cemetery cache,
Originally called Reilly after one of its early settlers, the town of Coalport has long been a lumber and coal town. The name was changed from Reilly when the borough was incorporated in 1883. Before the railroad came to the area, coal and lumber was transported to market down Clearfield Creek on wood rafts. Thus, the name Coalport derived from the town’s coal heritage and its status as a “port” along the river. With the arrival of the railroad, the mining of coal developed and the town grew into the economic center of the Glendale Valley. The first large coal
mine, the Sunshine Mine, was opened in 1900 by the Cambria Smokeless Coal Company in the middle of the borough where the tipper remained visible after the
mine’s close in 1960 until 1972 when it was destroyed by fire. At its height, the company employed between 500 and 600 workers; and operated a company store
where employee’s purchases were deducted from their pay. A total of 53 buildings in downtown Coalport have been listed on the National Register of Historic
Places. These include: Bell’s Drug Store which opened in 1884 and when it closed in 2001, had one of the few remaining operational soda fountains; the McNulty
Hardware Store which opened in 1895 as Holden Hardware and only recently closed in 2009; the Central Hotel located on Main Street was one of two hotels,
neither of which are still in operation; and the Coalport 5 & 10 which opened in the 1920s. Coalport also had several theaters, including the Dixie Theater which was built in 1920s and for many years stood empty with only the front façade remaining after the roof collapsed in. Coalport also had its own newspaper, the Coalport Standard, from 1885-1934 when it was purchased by the Houtzdale Citizen and became the Citizen-Standard until 1958. On August 15, 1928, one of the worst mining disasters in the county affected the area when an explosion at Irvona Coal and Coke Company’s Blain City mine killed 13 workers.