Origins

In 1900, Reese G. Brooks drove a horizontal tunnel into the hillside at Nay Aug Park. Brooks operated the Greenwood Mine in nearby Moosic and knew the local geology well. He chose a spot where the Dunmore No. 2 and No. 3 coal veins converge at a fault, exposing two seams of anthracite in the tunnel walls. The mine was never intended to produce coal. It was built as an educational showpiece.

Brooks cut the drift roughly 150 feet into the rock, with the tunnel standing 7 to 9 feet tall and 7 to 9 feet wide. Chambers near the rear broadened the space. Ancient plant fossils remain embedded in the ceiling. The mine opened to the public in 1902, affiliated with the Scranton School of Mines, and is believed to be the first tourist mine in the state.

A Century of Openings and Closings

Brooks Mine operated as a public attraction from 1902 onward, though not continuously. The mine closed temporarily in 1938, then reopened in 1945. In 1953, the Moffat Coal Company retimbered the tunnel, upgraded the lighting, and installed mannequins depicting miners at work. The tunnel was retimbered again around 1969.

In 1975, support timbers failed and part of the roof collapsed. The mine closed permanently. During the early 1980s, some of its exhibits were relocated to the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour on the other side of town. For nearly five decades, the tunnel sat sealed behind a locked gate while Nay Aug Park visitors walked past its entrance without knowing what lay inside.

Restoration

Chris Murley founded Underground Miners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, in 2002. Twenty years later, in January 2022, the organization approached the City of Scranton about reopening Brooks Mine. The city agreed.

By March 2022, a volunteer crew of roughly 16 miners began working weekends inside the tunnel. Over 18 months, they logged between 2,500 and 3,000 volunteer hours. They cleared debris, replaced timbers, and restored the interior to safe condition. Pennsylvania State Mine Inspectors reviewed the work and approved the mine for public tours.

Brooks Mine officially reopened on August 11, 2023. Within ten months, approximately 10,000 visitors walked through the tunnel. In May 2025, Underground Miners opened a new coal chamber deeper in the mine, outfitted with a scraper engine and coal drag system demonstrating how miners moved coal underground.

Today

Brooks Mine sits inside Nay Aug Park at 1901 Mulberry Street. Underground Miners operates the site on Saturdays from 10 AM to 5 PM, running from the first weekend in April through Halloween weekend. Admission is free, with donations accepted. Visitors walk the full length of the drift, passing exposed coal seams in the walls and fossilized plant impressions overhead. The mine remains one of two places in Scranton where the public can go underground and see anthracite in its natural setting.