Editing Forest City, Pennsylvania (section)

==History==
The land that would become Forest City had been known as "Forest Mills" since the 1850s.   From 1879 to 1886, the post office was called "Pentecost".  It was named after one of the first local settlers, William Pentecost, who had started the lumbering and milling industries in the area.  The post office was renamed Forest City in 1886, and the Forest City borough was formed in 1888.<ref name="susqCtyHist">{{cite web|title=County Info|url=http://www.susqcohistsoc.org/#!county-information/c1a2c|publisher=Susquehannna County Historical Society|access-date=1 February 2016}}</ref>

Between 1866 and 1871, the Jefferson Branch, a railroad spur of the [[Delaware and Hudson Railway#Delaware and Hudson Company (Railroad Corporation)|D & H Canal Company]], was built in Forest Mills.<ref name="susqCtyHist"/> It ran between [[Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania|Susquehanna Depot]] and [[Carbondale, Pennsylvania|Carbondale]], transporting the harvested [[lumber]]. [[Lumber industry|Lumbering]] was the only industry of this area, with the exception of a small mining operation run by William Pentecost, which supplied only sufficient [[coal]] to neighboring farmers with winter fuel.<ref name=cent>{{cite web|title=A Short History of Forest City|url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pasusque/history/forestcityhistory.html|access-date=13 February 2016|quote=compiled from the booklet published for the Forest City Centennial in 1964}}</ref>

In 1871, an outcropping of coal was discovered. The Hillside Coal and Iron Company bought large tracts of land in the area, and by 1872 the first commercially profitable coal mining enterprise was established at North Railroad Street. A small breaker erected on Railroad Street processed the 75-ton daily output from this operation until 1883.<ref name=cent/>

In 1886, another shaft, Shaft No. 2, was opened. This brought an influx of miners, mostly Welsh, into the area. There were now 300 men and boys employed in the production of coal.<ref name=cent/>

[https://cup.columbia.edu/book/american-showman/9780231159050 "The 1922 Breaker #2 collapse"]

On April 1, 1916, there was a mine collapse at Shaft #2 that most notably killed 7 Welsh mining-boys between the ages of 6 and 11. This event was the basis for the song [https://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/8777 "Crugybar o frynian caersalem"] performed by the Wilkes-Barre Quartet in 1922, which commemorates the event, as the boys were "fresh off the boat" from the Salem's Hills area of Northeast Wales.

Coal mining continued until The [[Great Depression]] hit this town hard, as [[primary sector of the economy]] products as lumber and coal were hardest hit. The population slowly dwindled as the coal mining came to a halt. Today, the Forest City Area Historical Society serves as a reminder of this once flourishing coal town.<ref name=cent/>

There are important agricultural interests in the region. At the onset of the twentieth century, coal-mining and silk manufacturing were the chief industries, but with the onset of The Great Depression in the 1920s, businesses decreased to a core of generational store owners.

2017 was a turnaround year for Forest City. In August 2017, a sweeping fire destroyed 25% of the storefronts in town. Then in September, a sudden real estate frenzy bought all lower priced houses in town. Additionally, according to US census records, the highest age percentile decreased below the 35 to 59 age percentile, the first time since 1910. Historically, this signifies the onset of gentrification.