The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took aerial imagery of the slate belt during the years of 1938 and 1939, a moment at the end of the slate industry's most prosperous years beginning in the 1880's and ending at the start of the Second World War. These images provide clear evidence of the location of quarries many still active at the time. All were used to identify the actual location of more than 350 individual quarries stretching across the district, each described in Charles Behre's book "Slate of Pennsylvania" written in 1933.
These images, which were downloaded from Penn Pilot, were geolocated using Google Earth which allows them to appear in their proper location within the software. Each of those geolocated high resolution images can be downloaded and then viewed in Google Earth by clicking on the links to the left.
In order to identify which image you need, use the interactive map below. The map can be panned and zoomed using the mouse and the CTRL button on the keyboard. Clicking a location on the map will highlight the polygon that represents the aerial image that contains the chosen point and the name of that image will be provided. To activate a download of the file click on the matching name from the list below and save the KMZ file that downloads. If you have Google Earth on your computer, then clicking on the downloaded file will open it in the software. If you do not have Google Earth on your computer you can download a free copy from the following location.
Quaker City (west)
Slatedale (southwest)
Slateford Creek