Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Windber, PA

Windber is a borough in Somerset County established in 1897 as a company town by the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company of brothers Charles and Edward Julius Berwind - the name 'Windber' simply reverses the two syllables of 'Berwind.'

The town was laid out in 1897 by company employee Heber Denman as the regional headquarters and commercial center for eleven smaller mining settlements in the Wilmore Basin, and Windber was incorporated on July 3, 1900.

Windber grew explosively, from a few dozen residents in 1897 to 5,000 people by 1900 and a census peak of 9,462 in 1920, as Berwind-White imported thousands of workers from eastern and southern Europe, drawn from at least 25 nationalities.

In its peak years the Windber-area mines produced nearly 90 percent of Berwind-White's Pennsylvania coal, making the company the nation's largest independent coal producer.

On Good Friday 1922, Windber's miners walked out in the United Mine Workers' general strike, demanding union recognition and honest weighing of their coal; the UMW finally organized the Windber mines in 1933.

Berwind-White wound down its Windber mining between 1949 and 1962 and sold off the company houses, and the 2020 census counted 3,941 residents in the borough, living in 1,808 households.

The Windber Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, and the Windber Coal Heritage Center at 501 15th Street displays the area's mining history.

Windber is home to the 'trolley graveyard,' a private scrapyard of the Vintage Electric Streetcar Company filled with retired PCC streetcars and transit equipment from systems including Boston's MBTA Green Line.

Windber sits about three miles south of Johnstown in the Johnstown metropolitan area, covers roughly 2 square miles, and is served by the Windber Area School District.