Reading Anthracite Company (Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company)

Mahantongo Street climbs the principal ridge that frames one side of the valley in which Pottsville was built. At its base are commercial and industrial buildings while the upper levels are given over to houses of the industrialists. This ornate terra-cotta-clad Beaux-Arts building was the seat of economic and political power in Schuylkill County for most of the twentieth century. Designed by an architect from the city of Reading, it housed the coal-holding division of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. Currently it houses the Reading Anthracite Company's library, museum, and offices; the company has made the switch to mechanized open-pit mining near Minersville. At 214 Mahantongo Street is John Fraser's architecturally austere United Presbyterian Church (1874) with an immense tracery rose window above the entrance and two Lewis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows facing S. 3rd Street. Wilson, Harris, and Richards supervised the 1909 alterations, while Ralph Adams Cram oversaw the 1926 renovations that produced the current interior, with its richly carved chancel furniture.