 Although the US Census treats Calumet and Norvelt as a single community, they are in reality two very different communities, each reflecting a different chapter in how the Great Depression affected rural Pennsylvanians.Calumet was a typical “patch town,” built by a single company to house its miners as cheaply as possible.The closing of the Calumet mine during the Great Depression caused enormous hardship in an era when unemployment compensation and welfare payments were nonexistent.