Reclamation Overlook Traditional Cache
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is in a wooded area of Pennsylvania. Be careful searching for this cache during the hunting seasons. Depressions in the ground are where underground mine tunnels caved in over the years. Although these areas MAY be stable, don’t take unnecessary chances with it; stay clear. This was my first cache hide and although it is not very far from a roadway, depending on where your park, the initial couple hundred feet to couple hundred yards may be a steep climb. Be careful.
I am located in the southwest corner of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal region. As our Great Nation raced into the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, anthracite coal played a key role in our nation becoming a world recognized industrial power. During the Great Depression, with millions of people out of work, many local miners began private deep mine Bootleg Operations to provide an income for their families. In the late 1930’s, as the big Coal Barons came into the area with their surface mining operations, local bootleggers knew this would be the end of their operations and their income. Hundreds banded together in protest of the surface strip mining. Just below from where I now sit, these protests turned to riots. State police cars were overturned and arrests were made. Peace finally came when the strip mining Coal Barons offered jobs to all the protesting bootleggers. From the last 1930’s through the last 1950’s, coal barons came through the area with their dragline shovels to harvest this natural resource of coal to sell on the world market. But with little government regulations on their surface mining operations, they left in their wake large open pits and mountains of coal refuse where there were once lush green-forested mountains. This began to change in 1977 when the federal government passed a law that operators of open pit surface mining are responsible for filling in the pits as they complete their operations.In the years that followed, the United States government began programs to reclaim these lands that were strip mined prior to the 1977 law and return them to their former beauty. I sit above one of those areas that most recently was reclaimed by the Department of Environmental Protection in cooperation with the Federal Office of Surface Mining. It is part of the “Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Project” and this phase will recover about 50 acres of land. My self proclaimed duties include: 1) watching over this land and protecting it in it’s return to it’s natural beauty; 2) observing the nearby villages and boroughs as they grow and develop; 3) providing a watchful eye over our small community cemetery – the final resting place of many citizens including our Civil War drummer boy; and 4) for all the Geocaching Benchmark hunters, providing a watchful eye over benchmark KW0258 in my front yard. Although my task is clearly defined, the “Past is still with us”, as I see the boom of a dragline shovel looming over the peak of a distant mountain. But to assist me in my task, the 1977 Law is still in force and the land will return. Cache is a clear plastic pretzel barrel with a white screw on lid.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
N ebpx cebgrpgf zl urnq sebz fabj naq enva
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures