BY PAUL GOLIAS, CITIZENS’ VOICE CORRESPONDENT / PUBLISHED: MARCH 6, 2016
As snippets of the John Welsh documentary on the Huber Breaker flowed on the screen, the room became eerily silent and eyes grew misty.
A cellist’s mournful music accompanied awesome interior scenes of the historic breaker. Nostalgic comments from people Welsh had interviewed drew agreeing nods from the 70-plus people gathered in Ashley, once home town to the historic coal processing plant.
John Welsh, a Philadelphia-based photographer and film producer, was previewing his documentary film, currently titled “Beyond the Huber Breaker,’’ as one of several Mining History Month programs held in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Dr. Robert Wolensky, historian and author of several mining-related books, was in the audience and he suggested, in comments made after Welsh’s presentation, that the title ought to be “The Huber Breaker and Beyond,’’ as the film captured the historical significance of the massive breaker and anthracite mining in general, and the loss of both.
Welsh said he would consider the suggestion.
Welsh, 48, told of coming to the Huber Breaker story by accident. He was doing a documentary on the Delaware River. He was researching Delaware River tributaries, including the Schuylkill River and its headwaters, when he found references to “this big endangered coal breaker’’ in Luzerne County.
“I went up to Ashley the very next day, Memorial Day of 2012,’’ he said, “and I found the community quiet except for Bill Best packing up a model of the Huber Breaker.’’ Best is president of the Huber Breaker Preservation Society and the model had been used on a float in the town’s annual Memorial Day Parade that morning.
Welsh learned of the breaker’s history and significance from Best. Quickly, Welsh began shooting film, interviewing people and enlisting support for what he hoped would be a documentary on the Huber. Alana Mauger of Philadelphia began writing and Chris Murley of the Underground Miners Society supplied a drone that was used to get the dramatic shots inside and outside the breaker.
After four years of work, Welsh is about six months away from completion, he hopes. “The film will be about 30 minutes and will tell the history of the breaker, the community and anthracite mining, and the loss of the breaker,’’ he said.
It is the loss that is the most heart-wrenching part of the story.
Built in 1938-39, the state-of-the-art breaker was a cornerstone of anthracite production. Millions of tons of coal were mined, processed and then hauled from the valley, mainly by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, to fuel much of the nation’s industrial production. The CNJ had a major yard adjacent to the breaker, where thousands of miners and laborers toiled in and above the Huber Colliery.
The breaker was shut down in 1976 following the last gasps of mining.
Breaker, from page C1
By 1991, a group of area businessmen, academics and a young mayor of Ashley, John Jablowski, had formed the Huber Breaker Preservation Society with a goal of saving the facility and creating a living museum and education center. The complex would be tied to the proposed Ashley Planes Heritage Park.
Title to the breaker had shifted to No. 1 Contracting Company whose owner, Al Roman, said he would one day donate the breaker. Roman, who died a few weeks ago, never followed through and he admitted in later interviews that he never intended to donate the site. He also eyed the steel’s scrap value.
After Roman’s company went into bankruptcy. Paselo Logistics, of Philadelphia, bought the breaker and 26 acres in a U.S .Bankruptcy Court sale in 2013 and the breaker was razed for the steel’s scrap value in 2014.
One of Welsh’s interviewees was Andrew Hart, an architectural student from Temple University. Filmed in the snow outside the breaker only months before it came down, Hart laments, “This is like watching a family member die.’’
“This our history and this is what we are doing to it,’’ Hart said, “This is our culture…this is who we are…and we’re going to get rid of it.’’
Welsh climbed the breaker and powerhouse stairs to film great views of Ashley, the mountains to the east and the tremendous internal steel structure of the breaker buildings. Using drones, he captured the chutes and pulleys and beams and overall infrastructure that, when seen with cellist Sheila Hershey’s music as background, had some at Welsh’s audience dabbing their eyes.
Joseph Robertson, a Villanova University professor who researches social identity and cultural issues, called the breaker site “sacred ground.’’ He said in documentary footage that ‘’a community needs to look into its past.’’ He bemoaned the “identity crisis’’ that results when a town allows the legacy of the community to slip away.
With the breaker gone, and the Ashley Planes Heritage Park project dead, the legacy will endure to some extent in the Miners’ Memorial Park created by the Preservation Society on three acres to the east of the breaker site. Ashley’s town council gave scant support to the breaker preservation effort over the years and John Jablowski moved on to Wilkes-Barre Township where he now serves on that town’s council.
Bill Best, Ray Clarke, chairman of the board of the society, and a small cadre of supporters continue development of the park. A rededication is planned for Labor Day weekend of 2016.
Welsh said he won’t go deep into the politics and “the ugly aspects’’ of the breaker story. “I won’t drop bombs and then leave,’’ he said.
Welsh, a partner in SightSense Productions and Vision Pictures, also has the Delaware River project and a documentary on Iceland to his credit. The Philadelphia-area photographer has taught photography privately, through the Wayne Art Center, and also through an ongoing photography workshop with the Honors Program at Villanova University.
Welsh is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers, has served as president of the Philadelphia Chapter and is a director on the society’s national board.
“Beyond the Huber Breaker’’ could eventually be show on HBO, The History Channel or The Discovery Channel. Welsh said it certainly will be entered in film festivals.