Ashley, PA

Ashley is a Luzerne County borough about a mile from Wilkes-Barre, first settled in 1830 and incorporated in 1870. Coal is the part of the story that gives the town its shape: Ashley was a mining town into the twentieth century, reached 7,039 people in 1930, and later centered on the Huber Breaker, built in 1939 to process coal from several local collieries. The breaker closed in 1976 and was demolished in 2014. Its story still gives the borough a clear outline. Hanover Township wraps around the borough, but the local shorthand is coal, breaker, and a place that grew around the mines.