Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers, Inc. (N&W) assisted Professional Services Industries, Inc. (PSI) and Verizon, Inc. by conducting a limited Phase II excavation of the former English Center Tannery in Pine Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Because a unique set of circumstances combined to limit Verizon’s options for locating the proposed cell tower, Verizon authorized and approved a Phase II work plan designed to recover archaeological and archival information on the tannery. To keep Verizon’s construction plans on schedule, N&W utilized portable shelters to protect the site and its archaeologists upon the onset of early winter weather.
N&W’s Cultural Resources Team, with assistance from PSI’s Architectural Historian, wrote a history of the site that outlined the economic importance of the tannery in the development of English Center and placed the English Center Tannery in the context of tanning technology and economics as it developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
N&W’s field team excavated thirteen 1m x 1m test units, along with two trenches to expose and further delineate soil anomalies revealed in some of excavations. A sizable quantity of leather scraps was recovered, along with a small assemblage of personal items used by the tannery workers. Further exploration, however, demonstrated that most of the artifacts were recovered from soils disturbed by a combination of flood events and the demolition of the tannery after flood damage in 1905. Based on the results of the Phase II examination, N&W recommended no additional archaeological investigations.