Hazleton was incorporated as a borough by two acts of the state legislature, the first winning approval April 31, 1851, and a supplemental act being authorized April 22, 1856. A short time later, mining and banking pioneer George B. Markle became president of the first borough council. The next year, on December 4, 1891, Hazleton was chartered as a city. In the early part of the 20th Century, Hazleton was a boomtown, its population increasing from 14,230 in 1900 to 25,452 in 1910. The population would peak at 38,009 in the 1940 census. With the decline of the anthracite coal industry which fueled this tremendous growth, the city's population also steadily decreased. Today, about 25,000 live in Hazleton.