Credit: Special Collections and Archives, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Created by the Pennsylvania state legislature in the 1860s, the Coal and Iron police were private police forces with the power to investigate, arrest, and imprison. By the 1890s Pennsylvania coal companies were hiring street thugs from Philadelphia and other cities to keep the peace and to enforce their will. Despite decades of documented abuses, the Pennsylvania legislature did end the licensing of Coal and Iron police legislation until the 1930s.
