Frackville Borough Hall is located at 219 South Balliet Street, Frackville PA 17931.
Phone: 570‑874‑3860.
Neighborhoods
Beginnings [1]
The borough government was established by a charter granted April 10th, 1876, and on May 25th of that year the first charter election was held, resulting in the choice of D.P. Haupt as chief burgess, and Henry Parton, A. Bone, Reuben Wagner, Robert McNealy, William E. Deisher and H.C. Wagner as councilmen. H. Widenhold was the first town clerk. the borough officers for 1880 were: Chief burgess, P. Zimmerman; coucilmen, John O'Hallen, James Madeira, James Cowan, Lewis Behmer, James Blackwell and W.R. Nice.
The discovery and mining of coal north of Broad mountain attracted and necessarily caused the settlement of a large population at the immediate base of operations. At Frackville the coal product of the valley is collected and hoisted over the plane to the mountain top by costly and powerful machinery, about 10,000 tons passing in that way daily over the weighmaster's scales at Frackville. The population in 1880 was 1,727.
Daniel Frack, one of the original settlers here, settled in St. Clair in 1833, and engaged in the hotel business, accumulating a considerable property during his residence there. While the coal developments of the Mahanoy valley were yet in their infancy, and the business prospects of the locality were, to men of less sanguine temperament, too uncertain to warrant investments, Mr. Frack, with that keen foresight that marks the successful pioneer, purchased a tract of one hundred and sixty-six acres at what was then called Girard Place, and removed his family to his new possessions in 1852, opening a hotel. In 1861 he laid off a part of his land in town lots, which were rapidly disposed of and added largely to the development of the village.
Samuel Haupt, a native of Columbia county and one of the pioneers of Pottsville, having settled there in 1825, purchased in 1854 a farm at this point, and subsequently laid off a part of it into a town plot with broad avenues, and it went by the name of the "Mountain city property," now constituting a very desirable portion of the borough. Prior to its purchase by Mr. Haupt the Mountain City estate was owned by James C. Stephens. The five-acre park that forms one of the chief attractions of the place was projected by Samuel Haupt's son D.P. Haupt, a prominent business man. The borough comprises 366 acres, and was surveyed by John Haupt, formerly of the engineering department of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, now a merchant in the place, whose store is the oldest business house in the village.
The first school-house was erected in 1862, on a lot donated by Mr. Haupt. The schools, four in number, are now kept in a fine building, creditable to the public spirit of this enterprising little borough.
Good water, pure air and fine scenery are among the attractions to settlers at Frackville, while the low price of lands, moderate, taxation and the liberality of the land owners, form valuable inducements to immigration; and the wisdom of this policy has been proven by the rapid growth of the population in the last decade. The railway terminating here is a popular line for travelers who wish to make a "short cut" between the county seat and any point north of the mountain, as it connects, by a line of stages established and operated by D.P. Haupt, with the railways at Mahanoy Plane and Shenandoah, the former station being only a mile distant.
Nearby Towns: Pottsville City • Ringtown Boro • Shenandoah Boro •