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Residents of Wyoming were thrown into a state of consternation the evening of March 1, 1897, when the town’s post office and several adjacent buildings became victims of a mine subsidence.

“The first symptoms of the cave were felt a few minutes before 5 o’clock and were characterized by a slight tremor of the ground along the north side of Eighth Street, which is the street running from the hotel to the railroad station,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported March 2, 1897.

The Wilkes-Barre News took a more historic approach in reporting about the mine subsidence.

“The historic little town of Wyoming was crowded with visitors Tuesday, for never since the memorable morning of July 3, 1778, when the British and Indians swept down from the mountains and massacred the peaceful residents, has there been so much excitement there,” the Wilkes-Barre News reported March 3, 1897.

Daniel Elsworth was the first to feel the tremor before the sudden collapse. Noticing plaster cracking and wall pictures falling, he felt the need to get his wife and children out of their second floor residence above the post office.

“The building began to tremble, the windows rattled and tinware fell from the wall. The members of the Elsworth family became greatly alarmed and thinking that there was an earthquake, they rushed out of the house without waiting to secure any of their belongings,” the Record reported.

As Elsworth was hurrying to get out, Sadie Laycock, an assistant post master, heard cracking noises she believed was hail striking the exterior windows. As two customers she had waited on turned to leave, they found it impossible to close the front door as it had shifted.

Laycock looked out a rear window and saw the earth collapsing. Laycock yelled to Postmaster Robert Hutchins who dropped letters and telegraphs as they both made a mad dash out of the post office.

The post office was the first to collapse and as the mine subsidence expanded, nearby buildings were sunk.

“The excitement ran high at first and it was found that the cave would extend over a much larger portion of the town, but he worst was soon over and by midnight the danger was past, for the ground had ceased to settle,” reported the Wilkes-Barre Times on March 2, 1897.

The Wilkes-Barre Times reported buildings within a two acre area, at a point on Eighth Street midway between Laycock’s Hotel and the D.L.&amp;.W. railroad station, was affected and four buildings including the post office damaged.

The mine subsidence just after 5 p.m. actually began four hours earlier when coal miners noticed an abundant amount of sand and water in the Mount Lookout Mine.

“At the Mt. Lookout Mine, the first evidence of the great damage which was to follow was the rush of water and quicksand through the mine. The sand and water came to the foot of the shaft,” the Times reported.

A tunnel ran from the shaft toward Eighth Street where sand is mostly dominant to a deep depth. “About all of Wyoming is under laid with a strata of quicksand,” the Record reported.

When sand and cream colored water was first noticed at the shaft’s entrance, mine officials feared a cave-in was imminent and immediately placed pumps in the shaft. Their efforts to prevent the subsidence failed.

“The officials are still of the opinion that miners worked up to and struck a pot hole, which is a depression or formation in the rock. When a vent was made into this hole, it released the quicksand and water imprisoned,” the Record reported.

As sand and water poured through the newly cut vent hole, it weaken the surface above causing the subsidence of the post office and buildings.

“The quicksand at the shaft is about 40 feet thick, but down where the cave-in occurred it is supposed to be twice that thickness. Pumps are being put in and an effort made to remove the water. Removing the sand, however, is another question as it fills a gangway more than a half mile long,” the Wilkes-Barre News reported.

Trees were cut down on the mountain and mules were used to transport the trees that were dumped in the subsidence to strengthen the unsettled earth.

About sixty men labored to fill the subsidence that took several weeks.

Look Back: Mine subsidence swallows Wyoming post office in 1897