Concrete City, Ghost town in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States.
Concrete City is an abandoned worker settlement in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, made up of twenty identical duplex houses arranged around a central courtyard. Every building in the complex was made from concrete blocks, and each house still has its original outbuildings standing behind it.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad built this settlement in 1911 to house workers from the nearby Truesdale coal mine. The community was gradually abandoned after the mine closed in 1924 and has remained empty ever since.
Concrete City shows what company housing looked like when industries built homes for their workers on a fixed plan. All the houses face the same way and share the same layout, giving a clear sense of how daily life was organized around the mine.
The site is reached on foot along an unmarked dirt path from Front Street, over uneven ground. Sturdy shoes are a good idea since many of the structures have deteriorated and the footing can be tricky in places.
When authorities tried to demolish the buildings using 100 sticks of dynamite, not a single house came down. The failed attempt made clear just how solid the concrete used in the construction actually was.
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