Cokeburg, PA

Cokeburg is a Washington County borough in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, with 626 residents in the 2020 census. Pennsylvania Route 917 crosses the borough, while Pigeon Creek drains the wooded hills and old mining streets. The place still has the compact layout of a coal camp: houses close to the former mine area, a borough park, and roads that follow the valley. The surrounding country is southwestern Pennsylvania’s rolling coal-and-creek landscape, with Pittsburgh’s larger orbit beyond the local ridge roads.

Cokeburg began as the Ellsworth Coal Company’s Shaft Four development in 1900. By 1906 the company had built 127 miners’ houses, a store, a saloon, and boarding houses. Coal from Mine 53 was processed into coke and shipped by rail, giving the borough its name. Cokeburg became self-governing in 1946, and the old slate dump was later turned into a park with a ball field, pavilions, playground, and basketball court. Cokeburg is a Pennsylvania borough where mine housing, coke ovens, a creek valley, and a community park meet.