Coal Age

AUG 2012

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1911-1919 Rogers, the Virginian accessed a virgin field of more than 20 billion tons of New River Coal, "without doubt the best steam coals in the world." Coal from this region of south- ern West Virginia quickly became the fuel of choice for the U.S. Navy, one of the reasons why Norfolk and Newport News became a military center. But in 1912, when Parson's traveled to the region, though the area was bursting with opportunity, he warned that consolidation was necessary. "The hope of the coal industry in southern West Virginia lies in the elimination of a shameless, inex- cusable and merciless competition that has existed for many years," reported Parsons. Railroads marked the dawn of coal min- ing in Utah too, wrote A.C. Watts in a 1913 piece treating the prodigious mines of Carbon County which, the year before had produced more than 2.75 million short tons, half a million more than 1911. One of these mines, the Castle Gate operation, on the mainline of the Rio Grand Western was not only a large producer, but was where in 1889 "the dangers of coal dust were fully recog- nized and the sprinkling by hose, the turn- ing of exhaust steam into the mine, the use of electricity in the coal mines of the state and the practice of shooting from the out- side of the mine with electricity, after all the men were out, were introduced," wrote Watts. Only one of the various grades of bituminous coal produced in the region was good for coking, that from the Sunnyside Mines. Almost every mine in the region was using electricity for hoisting, haulage and lighting. "Reciprocating engines, direct con- nected to the generators, have been the usu- al installations up to the last year when turbo-generators appeared in the field. Direct current, of voltage varying from 250- 500 is used in the mines, while alternating current of from 2,200 to 4,000 volts is used for transmission lines outside the mines…Room-and-pillar mining is general- ly practiced. Rooms vary from 18 to 30 ft wide according to mining conditions. Where mining machines are used in low coal, the rooms are 30 ft wide and have two tracks one each side. Pillars between are from 30 to 50 ft thick." Like many of the new coal mining com- munities, "native born" Americans com- prised a distinct minority. "Of a total of 38 www.coalage.com 4,063 men employed at the mines Americans comprise 35 percent, Greeks 30, Italians 16, Austrians 11, Japanese 3 and Negroes, French, Scandinavians, Swedes and Germans make up the balance or 5 per- cent," reported Watts. gNew Mines in Illinois Though new underground mines were being opened up nationwide, the largest capital investments were being made in the Midwestern fields, particularly to extract the large deposits of bituminous coal then being found in the Illinois coalfields. Estimated at between 136.9 and 240 billions tons, in an April 1913 article, author A Bement pegged the state's reserves at just over 200 billion, qualifying that "Knowledge concerning Illinois coalfields has been derived, not so much from geological inves- tigation, as from engineering experience." Having extracted more than 800 million tons since the Civil War, in 1911, Illinois produced over 50 million tons from an esti- mated 16 seams. As technology evolved, the heart of the state's operations were shifting to the south, particularly to the new deep mines in Williamson and Franklin counties, "the best known, the best advertised and the most spectacular field in Illinois." Producing almost 6 million tons in 1910, Williamson County had been producing coal commercially since the 1870s. So reli- able were the area's coal mines that the new Peabody Coal Company decided to invest in several; building its own, Peabody 3, near Marion. According to a 1912 story by Peabody mining engineer M. F. Peltier, Peabody 3 was shipping a 13,000 Btu low sulfur product to Chicago's new electrical power plants. "Over 33 percent of the entire tonnage was cut by" the new machines that were rapidly being introduced in Williamson County, reported Peltier. "The mining con- ditions in general are quite favorable for both picks and machines. In the pick mines, the coal in the rooms is all blasted from the solid with black powder. In the machine mines the undercutting is done in the bot- tom of the coal, both in rooms and entries. The electric chain breast machine seems to be preferred, although there are a great many punching machines used, which are operated by compressed air." Neighboring Franklin County, howev- er, was the site of several mines that over the next decade would become that nation's largest producers. Mining only began in Franklin County in 1904 when Joseph Leiter acquired 8,000 acres and began constructing the town of Zeigler and the Zeigler Coal Co., that by 1913 was being operated by the Bell & Zoller Mining Co. Though Bunsen Coal Co., a subsidiary of U.S. Steel was the largest property hold- er at the time, by August 1918, when Coal Age staff writer George W. Harris pub- lished two features on the region, the Ziegler No. 1 mine was in fierce competi- tion with new Orient mine of the Chicago, Wilmington and Franklin Coal Co. "If all the 324 commercial shipping mines of Illinois would produce as much coal in a year as the Orient mine did last year, this country would be provided with one-half of the whole amount of bitumi- nous fuel needed to supply 1918 require- ments." Standing on the hill in the center of the company town of Orient, Harris wrote, there "are 14 mines within a radius of about Zeigler District Colliery Co., Christopher, Ill. Rescreen in rearground on right. *Coal Age, May 10, 1913 100th Anniversary Special Issue August 2012

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