24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Summit Hill, PA

Summit Hill is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, whose motto is "Where it all began," a nod to its role in the birth of the American anthracite coal industry.

Anthracite coal was discovered on Sharpe Mountain, now called Pisgah Mountain, above Summit Hill in 1791 by the hunter Philip Ginter, one of the first anthracite discoveries in North America.

The Lehigh Coal Mining Company was founded in 1792 and the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company began mining at Summit Hill that same year, among the earliest coal mining operations in North America.

Summit Hill began around 1819 as little more than a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mining camp with stables and paddocks, and its post office opened in 1832.

Summit Hill was the western terminus of the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, the second operational railway in the United States, which hauled coal down to the Lehigh River.

An underground mine fire discovered at the west end of Summit Hill in 1859 burned for more than 80 years, until 1941, and became a local tourist attraction.

Summit Hill sits on the crest of Pisgah Mountain at elevations between about 1,520 and 1,620 feet, and its 9.1 square miles of borough limits cover most of Mauch Chunk Lake.

The 2020 census counted 3,120 residents in Summit Hill in 1,303 households, down from the borough's coal-era peak of 5,567 people in 1930.

Summit Hill High School was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Summit Hill belongs to the Panther Valley School District, which it shares with the neighboring coal towns of Lansford, Nesquehoning, and Coaldale.