About twenty company-built houses survive in the Village of Loyalhanna, an unincorporated residential community in Derry Township, on the eastern outskirts of Latrobe.  Most of these houses are in a single V-shaped row along main and Station streets, north of Saxman Run.  In addition, a number of company-built dwellings stand along the old Latrobe-Derry Road.  Next to the Loyalhanna Post Office, constructed ca.1960's, stands the old Loyalhanna School, owned by the Mania Hardware Company ca.2000, and used for storage.  The old Loyalhanna School is located along the old Latrobe-Derry Road and is a two-story brick structure with a hipped roof and a stone foundation.  Erected about ca.1900, it retains much of its original outside appearance.

Dwellings north of Saxman Run, along PA Rt. SR1043, Pandora Road, and two cross streets nearer the Pandora bridge over the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline were associated with the Pandora Shaft Mine.   These dwellings are T-shaped two story wood-frame double houses with a one-story room at the rear of the building.  Each dwelling contains a gable roof with a central chimney and a rubble stone foundation.  A number of these houses have been converted into single-family residences. Various siding materials, namely asphaltic and aluminum, have been applied over the original wood siding.  One or two of these house retain their originial wood clap-board siding. The company store and and railroad station that stood near the railroad tracks were demolished many years ago.

A number of two-story double houses are situated along the old Latrobe-Derry Road.  These dwellings have a rectangular plan and rest on stone foundations. Most of them have been converted into single-family houses and have been altered inside and out.

(Right: The Tipple and yard at the Loyalhganna No. 1 Mine.

(Photos courtesy of the Latrobe Area Historical Society, Latrobe, PA)

Among the early coal and coke enterprises operating in the Latrobe area was the Philadelphia-based Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company's Loyalhanna Mine No. 1, located along Saxman Run and the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline, on the east side of Latrobe.  This shaft-entry mine was one of the largest producers in Westmoreland County by 1880, when the Loyalhanna miners extracted over 118,000 tons of coal, most of which was coked in the nearby Loyalhanna Coke Works.

In ca.1886 a fire at the shaft of Loyalhanna No. 1 Mine destroyed the tipple, engine house, and washing plant.  These structures were rebuilt and the mine put back in operation.

In 1890-91 Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company opened a new shaft mine just east of the Loyalhanna No. 1 Shaft, along the Pennsylvania Railroad Mainline, this new shaft was named Pandora Shaft Mine.  The company also constructed the coal company patch Village of Pandora to house these workers.

By ca.1894 Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company was operating three shaft mines in the Latrobe area.  This included the Loyalhanna No. 1 Mine & Coke Works, the Pandora Shaft Mine, east of Loyalhanna No. 1 Mine along the old Pennsylvania Railroad tracks and the Loyalhanna No. 2 Shaft Mine, located in the southeast section of Latrobe, on the Ligonier Valley Railroad, across the railroad tracks from the presentday Lincoln Avenue shopping center and the Ligonier Avenue park and east of Oakville and the Anna Mine of the Oakville Coal & Coke Company.

The Villages of Loyalhanna and Pandora were served by the Latrobe-Derry Trolley Line, of the Westmoreland County Railways Company, whose trolley line ran along side the Latrobe-Derry Road. This trolley line operated from 1902 until 1933.

By ca.1910 the Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company was operating four mines, the three in the Latrobe area and a fourth at Onnalinda, in Cambria County.

Loyalhanna Mines No. 1 and No. 2 employed 267 miners in ca.1910, and they produced 123,000 tons of coal in 1910.  The Coke Works at Loyalhanna No. 1 Mine contained 217 bee-hive coke ovens but only produced a paltry 300 tons of coke in ca.1910.  The Pandora Mine employed 128 miners in ca.1910 and produced over 55,000 tons of coal in ca.1910.  Most of the coal extracted at the company's mines was shipped to market and sold as steam coal.

By ca.1914 Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company was led by John Pitcairn, president of the company.  Although the Philadelphia-based company had ceased operating the Pandora Mine, it had opened a new mine Loyalhanna No. 6 Mine near Stoystown, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

Coal from the Loyalhanna No. 1 Mine & Loyalhanna No. 2 Mines was still being extracted by pick and shovel, whereas the new Loyalhanna No. 6 Mine employed electric-powered machines.  Some time after the First World War Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company abandoned its remaining operations in Westmoreland County.  Onnalinda in Cambria County served as the company's field office and Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Company continued mining in Cambria and Somerset counties through the 1920's.
(History and description of Loyalhanna Mines & Coke Works, adapted from "Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites, 1994,"  America's Industrial Heitage Project, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, U.S. Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(From Jessica Arduino, Italy.)

My great-great-grandfather, Castellina Francesco, arrived in the USA on the 20th of July 1903. He had been married since 1897 and already had three sons. He left his wife and sons in Foglizzo (Northern Italy) to look for luck in the USA. He found a job in a coal mine. As he earned enough, he sent the money to Italy.

After a year and six months, he came back to Italy to see his family again, with the purpose of returning to the USA to work some more years and finally returning back home to Italy. But fate intervened when he came back in Italy. His wife was pregnant with my great-grandmother, so she wanted to go to the USA with him, but he didn’t want her to. He wanted her to stay in Italy with the children. She waited until he left, and some days later she, too, left with their younger son from Genoa on the ship “La Provence.”

She arrived in Loyalhanna, where she reached her husband, and worked in the kitchen for Italian miners. On the 11th of January 1907, my great-grandmother, Mary Castellina, was born in Loyalhanna. They both worked and were able to earn some money. On the 30th of July 1907, as in Foglizzo, there was the “town party”, and my great-great-grandmother asked her husband not to work, but he didn’t listen to her. Fate wanted that in that day a mine exploded and he died. So his wife and his children came back to Italy. She never remarried, and she lived and worked all her life in Foglizzo with her children.

I Have also an other great-great-grandfather that immigrated in America. This is his story.

My great-great-grandfather, Barbero Matteo, arrived in the USA on the 21st of December 1901. He worked in Latrobe as a farmer. After a year his brother reached him in USA. He had stayed in the USA for three years but came back to Italy to get married. He earned much money, and he was able to buy some land, so he worked as a farmer.

Instead his brother stayed in the USA, but I am not sure what happened to him and his family. I only know that his children were Barbero Francesco, Barbero Anna, and Barbero Francesca.

I hope that this information will be useful for your record.

I am very sorry for my english.

Jessica Arduino

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