1.  After the advent of furnaces and central heat, house in the wintry regions usually had coal bins in the basement, often as the first room in the front. Coal delivery companies would send truck to deliver anywhere from a half ton to several tons, depending on the size of the coal bin and the amount of cash on hand. People with coal stoves often bought coal by the bag (40, 50 or 100 lbs/bag). Coal delivery day was an exciting time or a kid. The truck would back up next to the house (snow permitting), they would open a cellar window, insert steel chutes, and then shovel the coal onto the chute. It would make a glorious whooshing sound as it slid down the chute, and a different noise as it cascaded off the end of the chute and fell to the floor. Often one of the delivery men would have to be in the coal bin shoveling the coal off to a side to make room for the falling coal. Or sometimes they could change the angle or length of the chute to make the coal fall in a different direction. It was an exciting event for a preschooler to watch.

2. It was in Elkland. Milk route drivers would bring in flat bed trucks of milk cans from the dairy farms. They would load the cans onto a conveyor, load the empty cans on the truck when they came down, and return the empty cans to the milk route trucks, and the drivers would return them to the farms The condensery turned the raw milk into consumer sized cans of Pet brand condensed milk. Cousin Ross Van Dusen managed the plant until his untimely death.