Mules for Sale near Windber, PA

About Windber, PA

Windber started as a company town for nearby coal mines from previously being a part of the City of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Berwind-White Coal Mining Company imported workers from eastern and southern Europe and exploited ethnic divisions in the area (which had been settled by Germans and Irish in the 19th century). On Good Friday 1922, coal miners walked out of the mines in Windber and several nearby locations in Somerset County, attempting to force the mine owners to recognize their United Mine Workers union, as well as accurately weigh the coal they mined. The company employed legal tactics (the United States Supreme Court decided two lawsuits) as well as strike-breakers, but the miners received considerable favorable national publicity and local support and held out until the end of the following summer. However, the UMW successfully organized the mines during 1933, after the Great Depression led to the election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.