Coal (fuel source)

There are two types of coal mines: a slope mine and a vertical shaft mine. There is also surface mining, where rock is blasted and rock and earth are moved aside or trucked away as they expose coal veins.

We'll focus on slope mines and vertical mines.

Slope Mines
A slope mine originally started out (early 1800s) as a hole dug into the hillside, typically where coal was already seen on the surface (example: banks of the Monongahela River). To access those slope mines, men simply crawled into the hole on their bellies or backs, continually digging forward and pulling out earth, stones, and coal. This would be similar to today's gem hunting in the western US mountain areas, where men and women lay on their backs or bellies to dig deeper under the rock face or under a boulder.

Expansion of Slope Mines

Eventually, slope mines were enlarged so a man could walk semi-upright or be seated in a rail car to be taken deeper into the mine.... so the mine's roof was perhaps 4 feet high from the ground. Many West Virginia mines were slope mines originally.

Vertical Mines

Vertical mines means men could access the mine via an elevator system. An elevator car would take a team down and bring the men back up. These deep mines typically need ventilation shafts to bring air in, and for emergency escape IF assisted from the surface. For example, "The Quecreek Mine rescue took place in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when nine miners were trapped underground for over 77 hours, from July 24 to 28, 2002. All nine miners were rescued." This was accomplished through a newly bored rescue hole, similar to a wide air vent bore hole.

Vertical mines by the late 1800s included a surface tipple and a coal conveyor system from within the mine to the surface, along with an elevator-cage system. Today's coal mines are pretty much the same, except much larger and more mechanized; men either walk in, eventually stooped over, or ride in cars on rails; or use elevator-cages.

HAZARDS OF MINES

1. First, the environment inside a mine is typically warm and humid.
2. Pockets of methane gas are a constant danger; methane is colorless and can catch fire/explode with a mere spark of one rock hitting another rock; from static electricity; from any source of fire or spark; from malfunction in machinery. Methane explosions and "toxic air" were leading causes of death in the 1800s.
3. Flooding is a constant threat from underground water sources AND from a breach through the active mine's wall through to an abandoned but flooded mine.
4. There are thousands of old, abandoned underground mines of various sizes and deteriorated conditions that were NEVER marked on any maps! It is therefore easy to be boring in one mine's wall and have a breach into an old mine's chamber.
5. Old abandoned mine chambers can be full of methane, or flooded.
6. Mines leave pillars of coal as the "studs" to hold up the roof of the mine. When a mine is played out (does not have enough coal to safely mine) or when the mine is deemed unsafe, these pillars can be deliberately blasted as a way to collapse the mine back to the entrance, so no one unauthorized can enter. But, coal pillars can also weaken on their own, causing a catastrophic collapse within the mine.
7. In all mines, the "roof" or "ceiling", which can have miles of weight pressing down on it from the surface downward, is at once the most critical mine location, and the most destructive, fragile area. Roof collapse is deadly. A slate fall or coal fall from the roof can injure, crush, bury, or trap miners within the chamber they are in. Roof collapses were a common cause of injury, death, and being trapped in the 1800s.
8. Mechanical failures that directly result in injury or death are less common than one might think. In the 1800s, men went into mines with helmets with a candle or lantern attached, and often took a canary--if the bird died, the miners knew to get out because the air was bad. Today, Mine Safety is much more sophisticated.

One of the worst mine disasters happened at the Marianna Mine, Marianna PA in Washington County, PA (SW PA). "At 10:55 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, November 28, 1908, an explosion occurred in the mine which killed 154 men and left only one survivor. Although the mine was quickly refurbished by the Pittsburg Buffalo Company, the colliery's fortunes flagged. By 1914, the mine was sold to the Union Coal and Coke Company and later to Bethlehem Steel which continued to extract coal until 1988, when the main conveyor caught fire. The fire was extinguished, but the mine closed anyway." (Wikipedia) Many of the men could not be reached and are entombed there.

Many coal mines became tombs throughout the 1800s. Many mines had roof/slate falls that killed one or more miners. Many NE US miners came as immigrants to work in the coal mines. In the bituminous mines, especially, there were many debates/fights over miner qualifications (the "practical miner") and the beginning of Mine Safety measures began in the late 1800s. The United Mine Workers UMW union was also started in SW PA in the early 1900s.

TO BE A MINER YOU MUST BE ABLE TO

1. Work in confined spaces
2. Tolerate claustrophobic conditions of tight space, total darkness if lights go out, and constant danger
3. Learn safe mining practices
4. Follow safe mining procedures to the letter
5. Never let down your guard or become complacent
6. Always protect fellow miners
7. Appropriately use your mining gear and keep it in working order
8. Know First-Aid and emergency medical equipment
9. Know and Understand your escape routes
10. Follow all directions superiors give
11. Tolerate being blackened from coal dust, from head to foot
12. Tolerate keeping your hardhat on at all times
13. Eat while underground, without worrying about washing up first
14. Be willing to learn from oldtimers every day
15. Be willing to do long shifts
16. Be willing to come back and do your next assigned shift

This is what millions of coal miners have done since the late 1700s. Millions of men did this job to supply coal and coke to steel factories, coal to railroads to power train engines, and to burn for heating homes and businesses. Men (and even women now) take huge risks to continue going underground for this resource.

Poor families also used to send children to coal refuse waste piles of earth that had bits of coal embedded in clay, to chisel coal from the rock/clay to use in families' homes. Poor and homeless often built fires in coal refuse mounds to stay warm in winters. Coal refuse would catch fire also, from internal combustion due to the build-up of heat inside the mound of coal refuse. Many small towns had refuse pits that burned for years. (Burning coal refuse--the unusable coal-- creates red dog, which was used on many rural roads before they made asphalt.)

One town's coal mine caught fire and is still burning under Centralia, PA which started in the 1960s, and eventually forced the US Government to relocate its residents.