Many have said that these are “unprecedented” times due to the coronavirus. But major virus outbreaks and quarantines are found throughout United States history.

That includes Lansford and the Panther Valley. During the heyday of anthracite mining, when thousands of people worked in the mines, multiple outbreaks reached the coal region. Most notable was the 1918 Influenza known as the Spanish Flu, which killed 675,000 Americans and millions more worldwide.

According to local historian Bruce Markovich of the Lansford Historical Society Museum, it was a particularly tragic time in what was not an easy existence to begin with.

“Living conditions weren’t all that great. You have 10-12 people piled in a house. Once somebody got smallpox or this, basically the whole house got it,” Markovich said.

The museum has a wealth of news accounts and artifacts showing how influenza, and other viruses in that time period, disrupted life in the area and killed hundreds of residents.

When influenza struck in the fall of 1918, The pandemic spread quickly in coal region homes, which were packed full of miners and their families.

The virus was especially deadly in children and the elderly.

Markovich recalled reading one account which spoke of patients waking up in the morning with a severe fever, and dying before the day was out.

The coal company trained its own nurses along with the Red Cross.

Coaldale Hospital had very few beds at that time. There were multiple field hospitals set up in town. The first floor of the Kiddie Kloes building was converted into a hospital.

Army tents were set up for patients in Lansford and Coaldale.

The first death from Spanish Flu was Anna Gluck, a nurse who lived in Lansford but who worked in Pottsville.

A pastor, Edward Gallagher, reportedly died from the virus after giving the last rites to patients sick with the virus.

During the epidemic, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company lost 105 employees, out of a total of about 1,500 at the time. Markovich said the death toll for the whole valley was roughly 400.

The deadliest month of the pandemic was October 1918. Lansford’s Catholic parish, St. Michael’s, reportedly lost 51 parishioners that month - not including soldiers who died in World War I. Records show that during that month there were multiple burials in a single day.

During that month, 52 Army doctors were sent into the coal regions from Camp Crane, which was located in Allentown. Doctors were sent to Lansford, Tamaqua and many other towns throughout the anthracite region.

The danger of infection caused families to forgo the normal funeral tradition. In those days, the undertaker would display the person who died in their own home, where loved ones would host guests.

“When this hit its peak, they would run to the cemetery as quick as they could,” Markovich said.

Other outbreaks

Panther Valley residents lived through several other outbreaks during the heyday of anthracite mining.

There were multiple episodes of smallpox. The coal company would respond by building quarantine houses in a wooded area where sick patients would be forced to stay. Families were responsible for caring for loved ones in the “pest house.”

After the outbreak subsided, the company would burn the houses down.

In 1906, a smallpox outbreak led the town to shut down. The museum features a journal of a resident who wrote that the bowling alleys and opera houses closed down, and dances stopped.

Tuberculosis was prevalent around the turn of the century.

News clippings at the museum from the 1940s describe children contracting polio from the Lansford Pool. By the mid-50s there would be a vaccines for the virus.

Questionable cures

Just like people have offered scam “cures” for coronavirus, there were many claims about drugs aimed at treating ailments which struck miners and their families.

In the early 20th century, drugs were fairly unregulated. There were many local tonics and “cures” mixed up by doctors and pharmacists.

Many of the “cures” included arsenic in order to thin the blood. The chemical is also found in rat poison.

Another cure used at the time involved boiling mercury, a heavy metal which is toxic to humans, and breathing in the vapor.

One doctor reportedly prescribed an ointment of goose fat, coal oil and camphor - a medicinal oil taken from trees.

“I don’t know if it did much for the disease, but it definitely helped with social distancing,” Markovich said.

The museum has one bottle, mixed by pharmacist Ed Davis, which included a mix of coal tar, alcohol and licorice. There’s still some of the concoction left inside.

Markovich said, “There were a lot of doctors out there just taking shots in the dark at this stuff.”

Markovich said there was at least one doctor whose treatment for the 1918 flu might have been effective. Dr. E.H. Kistler would prescribe quinine, aspirin and alcohol. Quinine was an anti-malaria drug.

One item among the museum’s medical artifacts is even more suspect than the elixirs. The museum has a DeMoulin “lung tester,” which was a gag item. Whoever was unfortunate enough to get tricked into using the device would be sprayed with flour while the machine made a loud bang.

According to a museum dedicated to the company which made the device, “Gag devices like the Patented Lung Tester were popular among DeMoulin Bros. customers - fraternal organizations and secret societies.”