Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Jermyn, PA

Jermyn is a borough in Lackawanna County that sits on the Lackawanna River about 12 miles northeast of Scranton, in the heart of northeastern Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region.

The borough was first incorporated under the name Gibsonburg and was renamed Jermyn in 1873 in honor of John Jermyn, a mining-industry businessman whose family developed the town.

Jermyn is known as "The Birthplace of First Aid in America" because in 1899 Dr. Matthew J. Shields conducted the nation's first first aid training class at the Windsor Hotel, teaching 25 miners from the Jermyn Coal Colliery how to treat injured workers until a physician could arrive.

Coal drove Jermyn's early growth: by 1900 the borough had 2,567 residents, and its early-1900s industries included anthracite mines, cut glass works, silk mills, powder works, and bottling and fertilizer factories.

By the 2020 census, after the long decline of anthracite mining, Jermyn's population had fallen to about 2,150 people.

Jermyn is a compact borough of only about 0.8 square miles of land, giving it a population density of roughly 2,700 people per square mile.

Jermyn students are served by the Lakeland School District, a small rural district organized in 1968 that covers Jermyn, Mayfield, and three surrounding townships, with Lakeland Junior-Senior High School using a Jermyn mailing address.

Reflecting its coal-era immigrant heritage, Jermyn's largest ancestries are Italian (about 26%) and Polish (about 15%).

The entire borough is served by a single ZIP code, 18433, at an elevation of about 960 feet.