 Mining did become big corporate business, especially after the Civil War.As a result, the Middle Coal Field was developed in the 1860s and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad created a subsidiary (Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company) to buy or lease and develop the expanding industrial coal trade.For example, consumption of coal along the Schuylkill above Philadelphia in the year 1839, at which time the first anthracite furnace in the United States - the Pioneer, at Pottsville - was operational, was 30,290 tons.