The town that never was

Ever heard of Sarah, Pennsylvania?  No?  Well even most of the locals never have, save for old timers.  It was built.  A "patch town" as we call them, also known as "company town" or "coal camp".  Whatever you call them they're commonplace in these parts.  This one, however, was short lived.  So short in fact that I don't believe anyone ever actually LIVED there, despite the town being complete.

On page 30 of the book "The Monongahela Railway:  Its history and operation 1903-1993" (side note: if you have any interest in this railroad go buy that book yesterday) gives some insight into what can only be described as a veritable orgasm of poor planning:

One terribly expensive undertaking that turned sour was the construction, in 1909, of the Rush Run Branch to Sarah.  The developer indicated a great quantity of coal would be shipped and proceeded to build the patch (company houses) and all the rest of the buildings associated with a shaft mine.  The railroad built the 4.2 mile branch, which included an arch over Rush Run above Mile Post 4 on the River Division and numerous cuts and fills.  The four trains that ran on this branch unloaded the ballast to complete the track.  It was determined that the coal did not belong to the developer and was never mined at Sarah.  The branch was never opened and was ultimately retired and removed.  Hustead Seamans Company at East Millsboro subsequently mined the coal and probably turned it into coke for the steel industry.

Rush Run Branch interchange with mainline, February 3, 1909.

The town of Sarah, June 14, 1909

June 25, 1939 aerial photo, as you can see there's not much left.

Things I've ascertained from older locals (so don't take this as gospel):  The wood from the torn down patch houses was used to build a big barn for a farm, and that Sarah was the name of someone's wife, either the mine developer's, a railroad official or some other big whig.

As to the claim that the coal was subsequently mined by Hustead Semans out of East Millsboro it's certainly possible, though it's very near the back end of the Maxwell mine (a Frick operation) and also in the vicinity of the huge Isabella mine.  Furthermore it's near the slate dump for the Crucible mine, which was across the river and I'm still trying to piece that one together.