Tamaqua (/təˈmɑːkwə/, Delaware: tëmakwe)[5] is a borough in eastern Schuylkill County in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania, United States.

The first business relied upon to support the infant town was agriculture, which, with the manufacture of lumber, was the principal industry for twenty years.

For a number of years the quantity mined, consumed, and marketed was very inconsiderable; first sales being made to blacksmiths, and some was taken over the Blue mountains in sacks and sold at seven to twelve cents per bushel.

Roughly half of Moser's original log cabin is still intact and visible behind a house on the north side of East Broad Street.

[7] The first coal breaker, called "The Greenwood" was built as noted in the quotation, at the site of the first mine at the lower end of the Panther Creek Valley.

However, details about construction and development in Rahn Township and Coaldale on the county-line with sister-town Lansford from the same source history illustrate it was definitely not the first breaker in the valley.

Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, with 10,000 acres located between Mauch Chunk in present-day Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua, was known to have mine tailings in their lands in Coaldale.

Irish, Welsh, and German immigrants came to the borough in the 1840s and 1850s followed by a large influx of Italians, Lithuanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Slovaks, and Poles in the 1890s and early 20th century.

One murder commonly attributed to the Mollies was that of town policeman Benjamin Yost, who was shot to death early one morning while extinguishing a gas lamp at the corner of West Broad and Lehigh Streets.

The first tavern in Tamaqua was opened around 1807 in Berkhard Moser's house by the widow of John Kershner and her son-in-law, Isaac Bennett.

In 1827, the Little Schuylkill Company, aspiring to draw the center of population to Dutch Hill, built the first stone building and hotel in Tamaqua.

In 1853, Tamaqua had a public library and debating clubs discussed current events in the first town hall or schoolhouse as early as 1845.

Matthew Newkirk of Philadelphia contributed 1,500 books to it, which passed into the hands of the Perseverance Fire Company when the society later disbanded.

In 1971, the borough annexed neighboring Rahn Township[10] and its Owl Creek section, home to the world's first fish hatchery.

Operators who worked the 12-position switchboard on the top floor of the Tamaqua National Bank at West Broad and Berwick Streets were transferred to Bell Telephone toll centers in either Hazleton or Pottsville.

Tamaqua's valley is located at the western end of the Pocono Mountains on the edge of the neighboring Lehigh River watershed.

Tamaqua's terrain is typical of many mid-size Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians with low lands and flat towns with business, rail transport, and industries in its lower valley locations and residential dwellings on the higher elevated slopes above.

U.S. 209 also connects Tamaqua to nearby municipalities, including the Schuylkill County seat at Pottsville in the west and both Jim Thorpe and Lehighton to the east.

A large rail yard existed in the southern part of town that extended through downtown with, at one point, eight tracks passing by the passenger station.

An engine house, turntable, and car shop were located across the street from the passenger station in what is now the St. Luke's Medical Center parking lot.

The collapse of the anthracite coal industry in the early 1960s, the Penn Central merger, and Hurricane Agnes in 1972 all led to the railroad's demise.

Today, all that remains is a single track line through town operated by the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad.

Tamaqua has a small rail yard, but its switching and geography makes it an important junction with tracks along both the Little Schuylkill River and others penetrating near the west-flowing Panther Creek and north into Hazleton.

The Bill Angst Little League Field in Thomas Walsh Park is adjacent to the original studios and transmitting tower in the Dutch Hill section of the borough.

Depending on cable providers, it is possible to receive signals from Philadelphia and New York City, since Tamaqua lies on the boundary line of the two markets.

In the fiction writings of John O'Hara, a short story writer born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, he references Tamaqua as "Taqua."

with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by R. Steffey; Typing and editing by Jo Garzelloni and Carole Carr.