Bootleg mining rose out of the Great Depression, when workers laid off from the large coal companies poached coal from the mines by digging their own little mines on company properties.

Prosecutions were common, but eventually mine owners worked out leasing arrangements with many of the so called "bootleggers.” Thus, generations of families sustained themselves and the region with "Mom and Pop" style operations, where the sons would follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

Up until the mid-1990s, hundreds of these small, independently owned mines flourished in the southern coal fields of Schuylkill County, Penn. Now, only a handful of the independent mines still operate, down from 60 in 1995 and more than 140 in the 1980s.

A few hearty families still cling to the only way of life they have ever known.

An abandoned tipple, a place where coal was unloaded, on the property of Little Buck Mine in Lincoln, Penn. in January 2006. The mine was closed a few years prior due to an accident.