Cokeville was a town in Westmoreland County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States. Following the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936, the Army Corps of Engineers began planning a dam project on the Conemaugh River to harness the flood waters. There were 122 structures in Cokeville on a 1951 map. In 1952, as the town was being evacuated for the

flood control Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and ru ...

project, most of these structures were razed, but some were moved up the hill to Cokeville Heights near Rt. 217. The town traces its roots back to 1858 when it was known as Broad Fording. Cokeville was served by the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal until the Pennsylvania Railroad located its tracks along the canals towpath around 1864. The name was changed in the early 1870s to Coketown, Coketon, and finally Cokeville after The Isabella Furnace Coke Company erected a 200 oven coke plant on the hillside above the town in 1872. The town was incorporated in 1887. The coke produced here was shipped to the Isabella Blast Furnace in

Etna, Pennsylvania Etna is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, located across the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. The population was 3,437 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Etna was named after the ...

on the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ; ; ) is a tributary of the Ohio River that is located in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States. It runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border, nor ...

. The H.C. Frick Coke Company took over the operation around 1901 and the ovens went out permanently in 1903. The only remnants of the town today are the bridge

abutments An abutment is the Bridge#Structure types, substructure at the ends of a bridge Span (architecture), span or dam supporting its Bridge#Structure types, superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end that provide vertical and l ...

of the road bridge from Blairsville, the railroad bridge abutments a little further up the river and about a dozen badly dilapidated coke ovens just below the large field behind Torrance State Hospital. There are still concrete roads on the two sides of the town.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Coal towns in Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania

See also

References