Unfortunately I was only ever able to explore the Huber Breaker once, for during the Spring of 2014 all of the structures on the property were completely raised except for the smoke stack which still stands as of 2020. Looking back on all these pictures brings to mind many vivid memories of how much fun I had exploring the breaker. Everything about the site I found so fascinating from the industrial history to the way all the structures were just so hastily shuttered and left to rot. I felt like an archeologist uncovering the fossil of a massive extinct creature as I crawled through the coal dust infused skeletal steel bones of the breaker, attempting to imagine how all the massive machines once worked. When I took these pictures I did not appreciate my time there as much as I do now that I can look back on everything. I remember the Huber Breaker as one of the quintessential industrial American ruins and indeed as one of my favorite adventures of all time.
There are few things more captivating than the hulking ruins of an industrial beast hidden amongst a forest of new growth vegetation sprouting from a mangled slice of the Earth disturbed and scared by decades worth of human pillaging and pollution on a beautiful summer day. Nothing like the Huber Breaker will ever be built again and perhaps that is for the best for the damage humans have done to the Earth in our plight for coal is astounding. Yet so too as incredible is just how versatile nature is. As the picture above proves with trees sprouting up through cracks in the cement despite the soil below being saturated with oil. It seems that no matter how much humans disturb the Earth for our gain, nature always has a way of reclaiming back what we've taken. Although I don't believe this is an excuse to be a poor steward to the environment, more so as it is a reminder that perhaps we humans are not as resilient as we may think.