The company that helped create the American Industrial Revolution is back
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company is back. Contrary to the rumors of its demise forty years ago in the book, The Death of a Great Company, LC&N is alive and well and living in Coaldale.
Part 2– From Old Company to New Company
Part 1 discussed the structure of the new LC&N. The old LC&N cease operations in coal and transportation in 1969 and became a candy company doing business as the Candy Corporation of America. In 1985, it ceased all operations.
Previously, in 1962, LC&N had reorganized; creating a wholly-owned subsidiary, LCN Corporation that took over most of its assets, except the Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad.
LCN Corporation assets included anthracite and bituminous coal land, mining equipment, railroad equipment, a water company, Split Rock Lodge, and vast holdings in Pocono Mountains real estate. LCN sold its locomotives, coal cars, its bituminous properties, and the Panther Valley Water Company by 1965.
Before dissolving in 1965, LCN Corporation created Split Rock Lodge, Inc. to own and operate the resort. Split Rock was originally created as a retreat for the upper management. A second company, Blue Ridge Real Estate was created to own and manage the Pocono Mountain properties.
In 1966, the company sold its anthracite coal lands to the Greenwood Stripping Corporation, a company owned by the Fauzio family, five sons and three daughters, of Nesquehoning. The father and sons had worked for LC&N as hourly employees in the early 1930s.
In 1960, Greenwood leased the LC&N coal properties. They replaced the wooden Tamaqua/Coaldale Breaker with a steel structured design, the Greenwood Breaker. In 1966, they purchased these lands from LC&N. In 1974, the Fauzio family sold the coal lands to Bethlehem Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Company.
In 1989, Bethlehem Mining Corporation sold the land to a corporation headed by James J. Curran Jr., John Curran – James’ first cousin, and Larry Tornetta. Curran said that the name “Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company” was available, as the Old Company was out of business, so that’s what he chose to call his reincarnation of it. Years later, James J. Curran Jr. purchased the other party’s shares and became sole share holder of LC&N.
The new LC&N assets include over 8,000 contiguous acres and the mineral rights to 2,000 sub-surface acres. Their holding stretches from Tamaqua to almost Jim Thorpe.
Curran’s plan to revitalize LC&N faulted when, in 2001, the market price of anthracite coal for home heating plummeted to $100 a ton delivered, below the cost of production. The company laid off 150 of its 220 employees—continuing to operate the business on a skeletal workforce.
In Oct. 2006, LC&N negotiated an agreement to sell coal silt on a pre-paid basis. Silt is sold to power plants to generate electricity. “That money has allowed us to financially stabilize the company,” said Sarah Curran Smith - Director of Communications & Special Projects.
They reorganized with a new Board of Directors called the Coaldale Energy Board of Directors composed of two members of the investors that pre-paid for the silt, Sean D. Curran, and Al Pritchard, - an accountant. James J. Curran Jr. became Chairman of the Board.
The new management of LC&N is composed of his four children: Sean D. Curran – President & CEO, James J. Curran III – Vice President Operations, Caitlin Curran Hatch, General Counsel, and Sarah Curran Smith - Director of Communications & Special Projects. In Sept. 2005, the company moved the offices of the family business to a double-wide trailer at the former site of LC&N’s #8 Colliery in Coaldale.
With the infusion of capital, a new management team, and relocation to Coaldale, LC&N was ready to tackle its first major project, renovation of the Greenwood Breaker.
Continued in Part 3 The Greenwood Breaker Renovation
