Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Freeland, PA

Freeland is a borough in southern Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, about 18 miles south of Wilkes-Barre and 10 miles northeast of Hazleton.

Freeland was settled in 1844 and incorporated on September 11, 1876; before settling on its present name, the community was known as Birbeckville, South Heberton, and Freehold, and Freehold and South Heberton merged to form the modern borough.

Freeland's founder, Joseph Birkbeck, an immigrant born near Brough in Westmoreland, England, bought the land for the town in 1842.

Anthracite coal mining was Freeland's chief industry through the mid-20th century, and the industry's regional collapse after the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster hit the borough hard.

Freeland is home to MMI Preparatory School, founded on May 7, 1879, by coal magnate Eckley B. Coxe as the Industrial School for Miners and Mechanics, where young miners studied at night after their shifts; it is now an independent college-preparatory day school for grades 6 through 12.

After Eckley Coxe's death, his widow Sophia G. Coxe, remembered as the 'Angel of the Anthracite,' carried MMI forward and oversaw construction of its larger campus.

The 2020 census counted 3,833 residents in Freeland, and recent Census Bureau survey estimates put the borough at roughly 1,640 households.

Freeland packs its population into just 0.68 square miles, a density of about 5,677 people per square mile, at an elevation of 1,943 feet above sea level.

Freeland's first frame schoolhouse was built in 1878, and by 1880 the young coal borough's population had passed 600.

Freeland, ZIP code 18224, sits at the southern edge of Luzerne County within the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area.