Northumberland County
The borough is in one county and the quarry is in another
The Mine Safety and Health Administration lists a limestone quarry in Montour County 6.72 miles from the Census centre of this borough, which is itself in Northumberland County, with a county line between the two.
The quarry is real, it is held by Heidelberg Materials Northeast, and it carries 14 people.
Twelve of fourteen restricted crossings are the county’s
Beyond that, the road pattern here runs the opposite way to most of this state. Within ten miles the National Bridge Inventory records 275 structures and 14 coded below legal loads — and 12 of those 14 are county-maintained against a single township one.
Almost everywhere else in Pennsylvania the townships hold the restrictions and the county figure describes a fraction of the network. Here it is nearly the whole of it.
That is easier to work with, not harder. One posting authority owns almost every restricted crossing within ten miles, so a lane needs one permit rather than a different township office every few miles.
Where the two branches meet, four counties inside twelve miles
That valley is why. This sits in the Susquehanna between Sunbury and Lewisburg, where the North and West Branches meet and the limestone of the Great Valley’s northern extension is quarried on both banks.
The neighbours spread across four counties inside a dozen miles. A slate quarry and a clay works sit 6.9 miles off at Watsontown, sand loads 7.9 miles away, the Lewisburg Quarry works 9.4 miles out in Union County with 16 people, a rail yard sits 10.3 miles off, the Winfield Quarry 12.1 miles away and a silica filler plant 12.3 miles out in Lycoming County.
Further on, the Bloomsburg Quarry works sandstone 14.7 miles away in Columbia County and the Bear Gap stone division 16.6 miles off. Road networks in this valley are large, so there is usually a way round a posted crossing.
A body that ran limestone and later carried sand or slate is an ordinary history here. Between the Watsontown Brick quarry 6.9 miles off and the Lewisburg Quarry 9.4 miles away the lanes are moderate and the loads are heavy, and it lands on springs and brakes.
- Around the Winfield Quarry and the Bloomsburg Quarry a body often did all of them.
- It is sat at a plant gate, not at home.
Four counties inside a dozen miles means work moves between them, and a truck that stops suiting one operator is often simply surplus.
The rest is the ordinary run of it, from Watsontown 6.9 miles off to the Bear Gap workings 16.6 miles away — retirements, estates and fleets renewing themselves.