The Knox Mine disaster was a mining accident on January 22, 1959, that is widely credited with single-handedly killing the mining industry in the Northern Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River broke through into the many interconnected mine galleries in the Wyoming Valley between west/right-bank town of Exeter, Pennsylvania and Port Griffith, a left/east bank town in Jenkins Township, Pennsylvania, near Pittston. Mitigation efforts created several new islands between the two towns and altered the western-side flow of the Susquehanna around these.