Huber Breaker, Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor
Ashley, Pennsylvania
Master plan feasibility study to restore the historic Huber Coal Breaker into a landmark tourist attraction, museum, and interpretive visitor center on Northeastern Pennsylvania's rich anthracite coal mining history and industrial heritage.
This project would draw thousands visitors from the more than 90,000 daily travelers passing 600-yards away on Interstate-81, and tap into the nearly $6 billion heritage tourism revenues of the State of Pennsylvania to benefit the Town of Ashley and adjacent cities in the Northeast Anthracite Corridor.Mining began at this site in Ashley around 1830 and at its peak employed nearly 6000 workers. 
The Huber Breaker is a monumental steel structure designed to process and sort coal that was distributed throughout the US and the parts of the world seeking high-quality anthracite coal. Thirty-one remaining buildings and structures still exist on the site dating from 1939 to 1966.
The Huber Breaker complex represents one of the most modern, centralized coal processing and rail distribution operations of its time. It is the last remaining complex in its kind in Northeastern Pennsylvania—a region possessing one of the highest per-capita wealth between 1880 - 1920 juxtapose by the most turbulent labor disputes in America's history.
Intervention by President Theodore Roosevelt and John Mitchell that resulted in minimum age workers, an eight-hour day, and a minimum wage that spread throughout all industry labor practices.
John Rossi Company worked closely with Mr. Al Roman, President of #1 Contracting Corporation and owner of the historic site along with representatives of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and hundreds of concerned citizens including local and state officials to devise a master plan for the site and buildings. The plan outlines initial stabilization strategy, stages of fundraising, and a comprehensive timetable to complete phased construction for the overall project.
Scope: transformation of an anthracite mining site/complex into a cultural heritage park and museum
Estimated construction cost (Phase 1 - 4): $10M
Scale of project: 6.8-acres
31-buildings and structures
1M sf
Planning completion date: 2000
Construction completion date: TBD
Collaborator and Co-Principal: John Gianacopoulos, RA, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Image credit: John Rossi, Library of Congress
Link to: Huber Breaker Anthracite Museum and Park Planning Report
Library of Congress, Historic America Building Survey/Historic
American Engineering Record
In memory: Although John never knew his grandfathers, Riccardo Rossi worked as an anthracite coal miner from the age of 19 to 54 when he died of 'black lung,' an occupational respiratory disease contracted by prolonged breathing of coal mine dust.
The Huber Breaker Plan is conceived as a tribute to Riccardo Rossi and the tens-of-thousands of miners whose toil literally fueled America's Industrial expansion and paved way for opportunities and the better life we know today.
Note: Northeast Pennsylvania is significant to John M. Rossi who was born in Scranton, lived and worked 26-years, then relocated to Boston in 1985. His grandparents immigrated to America from Italy and worked as coal miners, shoe-makers, grocers, and seamstresses in the early 19th Century. Resourcefulness, hard work, and ambitious pursuit was the family's ethos.