Wilkes-Barre Asbestos Exposure: Job Sites, Employers & Trades

Quick answer

Exposure around Wilkes-Barre clusters in a handful of industries and trades, from the 1930s into the 1980s
You do not need to know a product name — knowing the employer and the years is enough to start
Bystander exposure counts: people who never handled asbestos but worked near those who did
Household members exposed to dust carried home on work clothes may have a claim of their own
Call (570) 663-6949 for a free review — we can usually tell quickly whether a site is one we know

Wilkes-Barre’s asbestos history sits in the gap between the coal and the machinery that worked it. Every colliery in the valley had a surface plant — a breaker, a boiler house to raise steam, hoisting engines, pumps and a machine shop — and all of that was lagged, packed and gasketed with asbestos. Deep mining in the valley effectively ended after the Knox Mine disaster in 1959, but the men who fired those boilers and repaired those engines are the ones now facing diagnoses.

Asbestos exposure is local in a way most injuries are not. It happened at particular buildings, on particular shifts, in particular trades, and the same handful of employers come up again and again in a given town. Around Wilkes-Barre the recurring ones include the colliery surface plants of the Wyoming Valley — breakers, boiler houses, hoists and machine shops, the Vulcan Iron Works on South Main Street, which built mine locomotives and heavy machinery until 1954, Foster Wheeler’s Mountain Top plant, which built power-plant boilers and pressure vessels from 1953 to 1984, and the coal-fired generating station at Hunlock Creek on the Susquehanna.

The trades most often affected are colliery mechanics and boiler firemen, breaker hands, machinists, foundry and erecting-shop crews, boilermakers, welders, pipefitters and powerhouse operators. That reflects where the material actually was: wrapped around steam and process lines, packed into boilers and furnaces, cut into block and cement, sitting in gaskets and packing at every pump and valve, sprayed onto structural steel for fireproofing. The people who installed it, repaired it, and above all tore it out took the heaviest doses, because removal is what puts fiber into the air.

Bystander exposure is the part people discount about themselves. Someone who never touched insulation but worked in the same shop while insulators cut and fitted it all day was breathing the same air. Office and clerical staff in older industrial buildings sometimes have real exposure histories for the same reason. If the honest answer is "I didn't work with it, but I worked around people who did," that is worth a conversation rather than a shrug.

Exposure also travelled home. Dust carried on coveralls into houses across Wilkes-Barre’s North End, Parsons, Miners Mills and the Heights, Hanover Township, Ashley, Plains, Kingston, Plymouth and Nanticoke exposed spouses and children, most often through laundry. Those household members can have claims in their own right, built on the worker's job history rather than their own.

You are not expected to arrive with product names. Almost nobody remembers whose gaskets were in a pump in 1968. The employer, the job title, and a rough span of years are enough to start; identifying the products is our job, and it is done through supplier records, co-workers, and the histories of the sites themselves. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

The machinery itself was often made in town. The Vulcan Iron Works on South Main Street built mine locomotives and heavy equipment from its founding in 1849 until it closed in 1954, employing more than 1,600 at its First World War peak; its foundry and erecting floors were high-heat workplaces of the classic kind. After the mines, Foster Wheeler’s plant at Mountain Top built power-plant boilers and pressure vessels from 1953 until 1984, and the coal-fired station at Hunlock Creek burned valley coal on the Susquehanna. A Wyoming Valley history usually crosses more than one of these.

Call (570) 663-6949

Fees and costs in Wilkes-Barre

Consultation and initial case review, at home or at the hospital	$0
Mesothelioma or asbestos claim, handled on contingency	No fee unless there is a recovery — the percentage is agreed in writing before representation begins
Requesting employment, union, and military records on your behalf	Included in the case review

No fee unless there is a recovery. Any fee is a percentage agreed in writing before representation begins.

Questions, answered

My grandfather was a miner. Where would asbestos have come into it?

Mostly above ground. Every colliery had a boiler house, steam lines, hoisting engines and machine shops, and the men who fired, repaired and maintained them handled insulation and packing. Many miners also spent years in those surface jobs.

Didn’t coal miners just get black lung?

Black lung dominated attention in the valley for so long that asbestos rarely came up. But mesothelioma is caused by asbestos, not coal dust, and a diagnosis in a coal family is worth tracing back through the surface work and any later jobs.

Which Wilkes-Barre employers come up most in asbestos claims?

The ones that recur locally include the colliery surface plants of the Wyoming Valley — breakers, boiler houses, hoists and machine shops, the Vulcan Iron Works on South Main Street, which built mine locomotives and heavy machinery until 1954, Foster Wheeler’s Mountain Top plant, which built power-plant boilers and pressure vessels from 1953 to 1984. That is not an exhaustive list, and a site not named here can still support a claim — the review is where that gets checked.

I never handled asbestos myself, only worked nearby. Does that count?

Often yes. Bystander exposure — working in the same space while others cut, fitted, or removed asbestos — is a recognized exposure route, because the fiber is airborne.

I don't know which products were used. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. Very few people remember product names decades later. The employer, job title, and approximate years are enough to begin; identifying manufacturers is done through supplier records, site histories, and co-workers.