Wyoming Valley
The Wyoming Valley is a historic industrialized region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, once famous for fueling the industrial revolution in the United States with its many anthracite coal mines. As a metropolitan area, it is known as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, after its principal cities, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, and is the 100th-largest metropolitan area in the United States and the 4th largest in Pennsylvania. It makes up its own unique physiographic province, the Anthracite Valley, in the geology of Pennsylvania. Greater Pittston makes up the center of the valley. Scranton is the most populated city in the metropolitan area with a population of 77,114. The city of Scranton has grown in population after the 2015 mid term census while Wilkes-Barre has declined in population. Wilkes-Barre is still the second most populated city in the metropolitan area while Hazleton is the third most populated city in the metropolitan area.
The valley is a crescent-shaped depression, a part of the ridge-and-valley or folded Appalachians. The Susquehanna River occupies the southern part of the valley, which is notable for its deposits of anthracite. These have been extensively mined. Deep mining of anthracite has declined throughout the greater Coal Region, however, due to the greater economics of strip mining. Parts of the local mines had already shut down because some coal beds were on fire and had to be sealed; but the exodus of mining companies came quickly following the legal and political repercussions of the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster—when the roof of the Knox Coal Company's mine under the river collapsed. The Pocono Mountains, a ridgeline away, are often visible from higher elevations to the east and to the southeast of the Wyoming Valley.[notes 1]
The name Wyoming derives from the Lenape Munsee name xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat."[3]
According to the Jesuit Relation of 1635, the Wyoming Valley was inhabited by the Scahentoarrhonon people, an Iroquoian-speaking group; it was then known as the Scahentowanen Valley. By 1744, it was inhabited by Lenape, Mahican, Shawnee and others who had been pushed out of eastern areas by the Iroquois Confederacy. From the 1740s to the 1760s, the valley was the site of Moravian mission work among the Native Americans living there. They envisioned a settlement for Christian Indians. But the violence of the French and Indian War, known outside the US as part of the Seven Years' War, drove these settlers away with David Zeisberger, the Moravian "Apostle to the Indians."
Pennsylvania's and Connecticut's conflicting claims to the territory—King Charles II of England had granted the land to the colony of Connecticut in 1662, and also to William Penn in 1681—led to military skirmishes known as the Pennamite Wars. After Yankee settlers from Connecticut founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769, armed bands of Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) tried without success to expel them in 1769–70, and again in 1775.
The Yankee-Pennamite Wars were eventually settled in the 1780s. The disputed land was granted to Pennsylvania. The Wyoming Valley became part of Northumberland County. However, Connecticut settlers wanted to create a new state in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Massachusetts businessman Timothy Pickering was sent to the region to politically examine the situation. This led to the Pennsylvania Assembly passing a resolution which created Luzerne County. This ended the idea of creating a new state. On September 25, 1786, Luzerne County was formed from part of Northumberland County. It was named after Chevalier de la Luzerne, a French soldier and diplomat during the 18th century. When it was founded, Luzerne County occupied a large portion of Northeastern Pennsylvania. From 1810 to 1878, it was divided into several smaller counties. The counties of Bradford, Lackawanna, Susquehanna, and Wyoming were all formed from parts of Luzerne County.[4]
