Topic summary
Reading Railroad
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Reading Company.
1877: Reading Railroad Massacre
On July 22, 1877, after the crushing of strikes and unions by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, and following in the path of the Great Railroad Strikes of 1877, vandalism of the Reading's financial interests in Reading, Pennsylvania, began. The subsidiary that owned mining interests in the area, the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, not the government, called up militia and Coal and Iron Police to put down riots and protests that had broken out in the city. After the militia and Coal and Iron Police went to retrieve a train carrying coal that was blocked in a railroad cut, they fired on rioters and protesters, killing at least 10 and wounding more than 40.