Coal and Coke is king
Penn State Fayette Campus Coal and coke Heritage center
The Virtual Museum of Coal Mining in Western Pennsylvania
The Wiskey Rebellion
The National Highway
Searights Toll House
Township and borough maps of Fayette County Pennsylvania
Fayette County Pennsylvania Local Municipalities
Nation Registry of Historic Places:
Nemacolin's Castle
Local Area books

  
  
"Coal mining has great influence on region's history"
By Franklin LaCava
From the Uniontown Herald Standard,  Sunday, December 29, 2002
Note: Franklin LaCava is the author of:
"Bake Slow and Sure: Heirloom Recipes of the Nation Road Era"

     No other aspect of the region's history has had the impact or influence as coal mining has.  Industrial wealth, environmental degradation, successive waves of immigration and superior military might have all combined to build the great legacy of this valuable black mineral.  In writing about Fayette County and Southwestern Pennsylvania's history, this writer felt that presenting an essay that surveyed the coal industry and recommend a few books for further study would be useful for those who are interested.
        Bituminous or "soft coal" was known to be plentiful by the early settlers of the area.  It outcropped along rivers and streams throughout what is now the southwestern corner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  British colonial soldiers stationed at Fort Pitt were mining coal as early as the 1760s.  A conical pit mine at Mt. Washington supplied the Fort.  Coal was shoveled into large bags that were tied and then rolled down the side of Mt. Washington at this early mine.  This soft coal came to be know later as "Pittsburgh coal" and was discovered at many other sites throughout the Monongahela Valley.
        But anthracite, the "hard coal" of eastern Pennsylvania, was just as plentiful and was situated much closer to the markets of the established coastal cities.  Hard coal burned longer and hotter and was preferred over the "dirtier" bituminous, both for heating and as a fuel for stream locomotives and ocean going ships.  But the "dirty" quality of bituminous (coal)was due to it's higher carbon content, and so it became prized as a key ingredient in the production of high carbon steel.
        The age of iron (which utilized charcoal for its production), the day of the canal and the Conestoga wagon ended with the American Industrial Revolution - a direct result of the heavy demands of production brought on by the Civil War - and in stepped the railroad.  Troop and supply movements throughout the War placed an unprecedented burden on the railroad.   Expansion of the railroad required vast amounts of steel, much of it from the blast furnaces of southwestern Pennsylvania.
        America's Industrial Revolution approximately 1850 - 1910, was born in the crucibles of molten metal at Carnegie Steel, in the pits and shafts of the mines of the Monongahela Valley, and in the beehive ovens of the Connellsville Coke Region.
        The coke region was largely centered in Fayette and Westmoreland counties, south and east of Pittsburgh.   The steel making giants of the era relied on the silver ash called "coke" - a product of the controlled burning of coal.  Coke is an ash made by burning coal at a low temperature, and so eliminating the natural impurities, (sulfur for example), and other minerals unnecessary for steel making (known generally as coal tar).  By restricting the amount of oxygen the fire received, coal burned slowly at a low temperature, thus producing the high carbon coke nugget.
        Ovens 10 to 14 feet high (some shaped like gigantic beehives, complete to the detail of a hole in the center of dome), were stoked with coal and fired.  Coal was loaded through the ceiling hole in the beehive oven.  The hole also served to vent the smoke and could be covered to control the burning rate and temperature.  A door in the front was covered with clay and bricks during the burn.  Following the burn, the silver ashes were "pulled" through this doorway and loaded onto waiting railcars for delivery to the mills.
        The entire coal and coke region of Southwestern Pennsylvania with it's many related industries including shipping, railroading, heavy manufacturing, metallurgy and quarrying, to name but a few.  This area was to evolve into the manufacturing hub of the nation, and for a time, of the world.  By the early 1900s, it's clients were as varied as bridge builders, architects of skyscrapers, shipyards, automobile manufacturers and the communications industry.
        America's emergence in the world arena caused the region's great industrial expansion.   Construction of the Panama Canal and Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet owe much to the foundries of Pittsburgh.
        Subsequently, the First and Second World Wars caused the area's immigrant population to swell and the economy to boom with a stable supply of cheap, efficient labor.
        Conversely, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the steel recession of the late 1950s caused the population to decline and the economy to "go bust".  By the late 1970s, international competition caused big steel to suffer a catastrophic collapse.
        Cheaper foreign coal supplies impacted Pennsylvania mining, as did new markets of American coal in the Midwest and Western states, Japanese and German steel manufacturers outpaced the outmoded mills of Pittsburgh which were operating with World War II era technology.
        The legacy lives on today in a handful of specialty metal makers still working in the area and in the huge byproduct coking facilities that have replaced the labor intensive beehive ovens of the bygone boom times.
        The industry has always been a dangerous one.  Every generation of miners and mill workers had to face the possibility of death or tragic accident at any moment of every day.
        Western Pennsylvanians were conscious of this life and death struggle long before the unfolding drama of the miners trapped at Quecreek, Somerset County riveted national media attention this year.  To further explore the legacy of coal, coke and steel the reader may wish to look to the local library or bookstore.

  
  
Additional coal and coke sites:

Penn State Fayette Campus Coal and Coke Heritage Center

Preserving the history of the Connellsville coke region: 1870 - 1970.
  
A Virtual Museum of Coal Mining in Western Pennsylvania.
This is an excellent pictoral site paying tribute to the Coal Companies and the miners that mined the Bituminous Coal seams of Western Pennsylvania.
This site is maintained by Raymond A. Washlaski and Ryan P. Washlaski.

  
  
The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion in Fayette County is the first occasion where Federal troops were used to quell a civil rebellion.  A meeting at Redstone Fort in July of 1791 began the organized resistance to the collection of the whiskey excise tax.  Attempts to enforce collections often resulted in humiliation with collectors tarred and feathered. The resistance festered and grew over the next three years.  As resistance increased so did the federal charges, followed by increased animosity as more citizens were forced to travel to Philadelphia.  In July 1794 an open rebellion erupted with the local militia taking an active role.  In one gathering 5,000 to 7,000 armed men assembled in an open field displaying their willingness to fight.
By August 7, 1794, George Washington began mobilizing 12,950 troops from eastern Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey under Gen. Harry Lee, the Governor of Virginia and father of Robert E. Lee.  
This was all done prior to the last battle of the Revolutionary War was fought.

Some additional web sites on the Wiskey Rebellion:

Reasons for Dissension and the Insurrection: Democracy or Aristocracy?

Redstone Fort - July 27, 1791, Opposition to the Whiskey Excise Tax begins

  
  
County Links:

  
  
Township and borough maps of Fayette County Pennsylvania from the 1872"
  
  
Fayette County Pennsylvania Local Municipalities

  
  
Nation Registry of Historic Places:
  
  
Brownsville's Nemacolin Castle is an important landmark and focal point of Brownsville, one of the most historically important towns in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
         Brownsville was an important 'jumping off' point for many settlers migrating west to the rich lands of the Ohio country and Kentucky late in the 18th century.  They used the 'National Pike' from Cumberland to Bronwsville, then 'jumped off' on floating craft of all types down the Monongahela river and on to the Ohio river to conclude their journey west.  Brownsville is strategically located at the intersection of the Monongahela river and the "Nationa Pike", the first Federal highway transcending the Allegheny mountains from Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia. 
         Some of the earliest Native American sites documented in North America are located within twenty to thirty miles of Nemacolin Castle, the most famous of which is the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Avella, in Northwestern Washington County, believed by many to be the oldest site in North America.  The earliest Meadowcroft Rock Shelter inhabitants predated later cultures, such as the Mound Builders, the Hopewell and Adena Peoples, and the Monongahela Peoples.

  
  
Recommended books for further understanding:

"The American Steel Industry 1850-1870; a geographical interpretation"
by Kenneth Warren, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).
Written from the perspective of an English professor, this study nearly becomes an epic history of the birth and evolution of the industry in the United States.   Especially valuable as it tries to account for the reason why the industry didn't rise at an earlier date.

"And the Wolf Finally Came, The Decline of the American Steel Industry"
by by John P. Hoerr, (University of Pittsburgh's Press: Pittsburgh, 1988) , 690 pages.
A blow by blow account of the conflict between labor and management of USX (formerly United States Steel), that lead to the closing and final abandonment of the mills.   Tragic on many levels, the narrative is often over lost in so many details compressed into the five years covered by the book - 1982 to 197.  Nevertheless, this is a very important piece of documentation.  The book's title and the dramatic struggle between labor and management is encapsulated in a quotation from a statement made by Joseph Odorcich, then Vice President of United Steelworkers of America, "One of the problems in the mills is that no union man would trust any of the companies.  To the average union man, they're always crying wolf".

"Big Steel, The First Century of the United States Steel; Corporation 1901 - 2001"
by Kenneth Warren, (University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, 2001) , 322 pages.
At it's formation in 1901 by financier J. P. Morgan, U. S. Steel was the world's largest industrial corporation.  It produced thirty percent of the steel made worldwide.   Today USX makes ten percent of America steel - merely one and one half percent of global production.  The story of the collapse and restructuring of this industrial behemoth is largely the story of steel in the Pittsburgh region.  The author was granted access to company files and records to produce a highly documented account of how competition from smaller companies forced a dramatic downsizing to a more efficient economy of scale.

"Beehive Coke Years (A Pictorial History of Those Times)"
by John K. Gates, (Privately Published by the Author, 1979) , 184 pages.
This collection of vintage black and white photos depicting the aspects of mining and life in the Bituminous coal region of Southwestern Pennsylvania.  Masterful in it's documentation of the coal and coke era from it's beginnings following the Civil War through the boom of the 1920s, the Great Depression, the Second World War boom and eventual decline of the 1970s.  Superb quality photos of men, machinery and animals with detailed captions.

"Common Lives of Uncommon Strength: The Women of the Coal and Coke Era of Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1880 - 1970" (Privately printed, 2001), 227 pages.
It took eight years to compile, edit and organize this collection of interviews and photographs of coal towns concentrated mainly in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.   Overall, the effort make a significant contribution to understanding the many interrelationship of coal and mining and coke production with the family structure.   Dr. Evelyn A. Hovanec, assisted by Elaine DeFrank and Pamela Seighman, at the Coal and Coke Heritage Center at Penn State, Fayette Campus.  Have managed to balance the any social and cultural aspects of a true American melting pot ranging from union negotiations and race relations, to weddings and midwifery.

"Patches of History.  The 1920s and 1930s; Heyday of Fayette County Coal and Coke"
by Regis M. Maher, M.D., (Privately Printed 1999) , 212 pages.
Dr. Maher had witnessed the changes and had known most of the people in the coal "patch towns" of Lambert, Palmer and Filbert as both a resident and a mining company doctor.   A chapter is dedicated to county medical history and the Uniontown Hospital.   Many high quality photos - a real labor of love.

"Steelworkers in America, The Nonunion Era"
by David Brody, (Harper and Row, New York, 1960 and 1969) , 303 pages.
Highly regarded in the academic community, this work is easily read - though most likely as a reference rather than a narrative history.  Overall, a good comprehensive study of the struggles (often violent) between the capitalist mill owners and their workforce.  Ranging from the 1880s into the 1920s this volume is indispensable to the study of the epic struggle for the recognition of collective bargaining.

Also, for an excellent on-line pictoral guide through the coal and coke ovens of Southwestern Pennsylvanai, visit Chris and Lisa's excellent site, Penn Patch.