Rahn Township, Pennsylvania was a former Pennsylvania township created from the lightly populated former Penn Township of Schuylkill County, in eastern

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 ...

. Rahn Township was in existence from 1788–1971 and was the governmental body of the less populated lands between today's

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

s of Tamaqua and Coaldale, and Bull Run now absorbed by their growth. Beginning in 1820, when

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a lustre (mineralogy)#Submetallic lustre, submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy densit ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

deposits were being first exploited by the Lehigh Coal Mine Company and its successor

Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and influential role in ...

(1818), the sections of lands of Penn Township that would become the future Rahn Township along the Carbon County border was the mining camp that would grow to become

Summit Hill, Pennsylvania Summit Hill is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 3,034 at the 2010 census. Summit Hill was the western terminus of the United States' second operational railwa ...

, where the early coal pits exploited were at and around the peak called Sharpe Mountain of

Pisgah Ridge The name Pisgah may refer to: * Mount Pisgah (Bible) Places In the United States Communities * Pisgah, Alabama, a town * Pisgah, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Pisgah, Iowa, a city * Pisgah, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Pisgah, ...

, the place where hunter Phillip Ginter had discovered the deposits in 1791. Sharpe Mountain today is a depression, as the LC&N Co. mined that place until well into the 1840s before they had to retreat down hill and drive shaft mines at Coaldale and Lansford.

References

{{authority control Former townships in Pennsylvania Populated places disestablished in 1971 Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania