Philly.com:
Not so long ago, this town was just the seat of Bradford County. Now, it lies at the epicenter of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale region.
It used to be a sleepy little place on the Susquehanna River. Now, it's a boom town.
Help-wanted signs plead for waitresses, mechanics, truck drivers. Once-empty storefronts are now occupied in this hilly borough, population 3,000.
Towanda has morning and midday rush hours, thanks to the columns of trucks bearing water, sand, and drill pipe. A banner hangs outside First Liberty Bank & Trust: "Gas Rights? We can help."
"People used to call Towanda a ghost town," said Shannon Clark, a Borough Council member and real estate agent. "No more."
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So many title researchers have descended on the Bradford County Courthouse to examine deeds for gas leases that the county extended office hours and installed tables in the hallways to accommodate the crowds. The rotunda looks like a college library during finals.
"Hey, this was a dead area, so the excitement is mostly good," said Shirley Rockefeller, the county's register and recorder of deeds. Her office has even recorded several marriages of local women to Gulf Coast roughnecks, she said.
According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, 355 of the 1,368 Marcellus wells drilled in Pennsylvania this year were drilled in this rural county on the New York border. Bradford County also leads the state in gas production.
Suddenly, in an agricultural region of 62,000 people that had been suffering long-term population decline, decent housing is in short supply.
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New York has been blocking this prosperity despite its near beggar status. Environmental wackos fear fracking which makes it possible to extract the shale gas. They need both the fuel and the money, but the anti energy left still seems to be running things there.
Image via Wikipedia
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