Out In The Coal Patch: Life in the Coal Mining Towns of Western Pennsylvania

welcome to our November program it's entitled out in the coal patch life in the coal mining towns of western Pennsylvania mine that's wheat in the back that's strong you another day older and deeper in debt st. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go knows that pittsburgh is well known as for its steel industry but another industry that was just as important was the coal industry and it was the coal industry that provided the energy for the steel industry and 100 years ago western Pennsylvania was home to a number of small villages that were referred to as coal patches so before we talk about the coal mining communities I just wanted to give you a brief description of different methods of mining and there are basically four types surface mining which is strip mining and that's for coal that is near the surface and what they do is just go in with shovels and dig it out the other type is what they call a drift mine and that's when the coal vein is exposed on the side of a hill and what they do is just dig back into the hill a slope mine is similar to a drift mine only you can see it sort of slopes down into the coal vein and the one that we're all familiar with if you grew up in western Pennsylvania is what we call a shaft mine and that's whenever they drill down to the coal vein which is usually located anywhere from 200 to 500 feet below the surface so those are the four types of mining that occurred here in western Pennsylvania the first mining occurred in 1760 Captain Thomas Hutchins of the British Army visited Fort Pitt and he reported that coal was being mined on the hill across the river from the fort and what they would do they would dig drift mines back into the face of Mount Washington at the time Mount Washington was known as coal hill because there were so many drift mines back into the hill so they would bring the coal out and they built large wooden chutes that went down to the floor of the valley and they would dump the coal down these chutes and once it got down by the river they would gather it in bushel baskets and then load it in two canoes and boats and carried across the Marne River to Fort Pitt by 1830 Pittsburgh was consuming 400 tons of coal per day and most of that was used in the glass industry types of coal uses in Pennsylvania the first was for colonial iron furnaces and Glass Works then after the Civil War coal was used primarily in the steel industry and today coal is used to generate electric now Pittsburgh is famous for the meeting point of the three rivers however it's also the meeting point of three coal seams you have the Pittsburgh seam and that runs south west into West Virginia Ohio and Kentucky you have the Connellsville seam which runs east out into Westmoreland and Fayette counties and we have the Freeport scene the Freeport seam follows the path of the Allegheny River north and we here are a part of the Freeport scene and this is a map that shows you the Freeport coal field and if you can see all the red dots there those are mines that were once in the Freeport coal field you can see New Kensington that gives you a focal point and then you can see all the different mines so that shows you how many mines were in this area as I said this is a very rich area for coal over 21 billion tons have been mined over the past 200 years here in Pennsylvania that accounts for 25% of all the coal that's mine in the country in the late 1800s we saw the rise of the steel industry and because of that large amounts of coal were needed for the steel industry and after the Civil War technology had improved to a point where they were able to search for coal deeper down in the ground and that's when we saw an increase in the number of the shaft mines now coal mining like steel is a very labor-intensive industry you need a lot of people to work it and whenever they built the steel mills they could more or less choose where they wanted to build the mills they needed close to transportation close to their suppliers and importantly they needed close to a population center because they had people to work in them in the mills however with coal they had to go where the coal was so in most cases almost all cases the coal was discovered out in the rural areas so being out in the world areas there were no population there was no infrastructure so it was up to the coal companies to provide all that before they could go into business so what they would do upon choosing a site of where they were going to have their coal mine the first thing they had to do was begin to sink the shaft and that was dig the hole because they were out in the country they would have to build a rail line to transport transport the coal to market so as a result they would have to build a railroad they would have to recruit workers and then they would have to provide a place for those workers to live so what they did the coal companies sent agents to your primarily Eastern Europe and Italy and they would go into the small towns and villages that were very poor and they would recruit men to and work in the coal mines and they would have the agent recruit them then they would send them off to the port of deportation and at the port they would have another agent there who would make sure that the prospective miner got on the correct ship to come to come to America once he arrived in New York and was processed through Ellis Island they would have another agent who would make sure that the man got on the correct train to get to his destination and then whenever he got here in Pittsburgh they would have another agent that would make sure he got from Pittsburgh out to Renton Harmar Ville Harwick wherever he was going to be working as I said they had to build a company town they had to provide housing for their workers the houses were very basic they were all uniform and they used a lot of the houses or what they call a two-up and two-down that meant they had two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs the houses were just shelter they had usually a stove for heat and cooking there was no electricity gas or water it was shelter what they would do is they would drill wells out along the street every so many houses and people would go out there for their water you can see here there's an outhouse out back here that they used and this is how they lived it was usually these houses were built on the less desirable land and you can see this is a mining town in West Virginia and you can see it's right along the train tracks there they had to put up with the noise of the train tracks if you go across the river over in harm or Ville those houses on Freeport Road at the end of the Halton bridge those were the company houses for the harbor ville mine 100 years ago the Allegheny River wasn't as as clean as it is today was basically an open sewer everything was dumped in there they had the railroad that ran right past their back doors so that's why they built the houses out there there was a hierarchy in the houses the laborers all had houses like the they were all similar now different cold patches had different types of housings if you went over to harm Ervil and you go up guys Run Road you can see those brick row houses that's what they had there if you go further out the Indianola you see they had bungalows small little cottages if you go out the Renton you will see that they had duplexes so there were different types but they were all the same and as I said there is a hierarchy so laborers lived in the basic houses you had people in the mind like the blacksmith's the carpenters the electricians they were the tradesmen so they got a little nicer house they may have a house further away from the railroad tracks further away from the mine they might have a yard a little bit of area so they've got nicer houses because they were the tradesmen and then you had the management the mine superintendent the managers the bosses they had the nice big houses out on the main road away from the mine away from the dirt and grime of the mine so there was this separate setup you know how all the houses worked in addition to building the houses they had to build roads because you look at somewhere like plum plum Township 100 years ago plum borough was plum township and it was pretty much just a rural area they had no infrastructure out there they had some country roads so the coal mining company came in they built their roads their streets their sidewalks they would build parks and oftentimes they would build schools for the children they would provide a company doctor now the doctor was for the workers but he also took care of the families if the children got sick he took care of everybody in town so they provided everything that they needed for the miners and their families even though they provided it for them they still had to pay rent the rent for the houses were deducted from their pay every pay period so they weren't able to live for free and that money that they paid in rent went right back to the companies now the center of activity in all coal towns were that was the company store the company store supplied everything that the miners needed all the necessities clothing food it was said you could buy everything from diapers to dynamite in the company store and literally the miners did have to purchase their own dynamite when they went down in the mine the mine did not supply tools they did not supply helmets or anything like that and blasting caps they had to buy all that out of their pay which when they got paid went to the company store bought it and the money went right back to the coal companies and I'm sure you've all heard the song by Tennessee Ernie Ford I owe my soul to the company store and that was reality for the miners because they had to get everything from the company store this is a picture of an interior of a company store you can see the food in the back you can see the rack of clothing personal effects on the right there whatever you needed you could buy at the company store and they wanted to keep their workers in town they didn't want them spending their money if they lived in harmony they didn't want them to come over to Oakmont to shop here they would have them spend all their money at the company store a lot of times the work went down there would be times when they'd be laid off and they wouldn't get paid so what they would do is buy on credit at the company store and was called buying on tick and they kept an account for everything you needed and then when you went back to work they deducted the money so you you you never got out from under what you owed at the store some of the mine companies went as far as rather than pay in money they paid in what they called script and this is more or less I guess you would call it monopoly money it was only good at the company store and so again that's how they got paid this is from the Deer Creek mercantile company over in Indianola and this was good only at their store they got paid they went right back gave it back to the mine company so it was just a cycle they couldn't get out of over in Harmar bill they had a company store right at the end of the bridge and right next to that was the Eaton brothers garage and Jim Eaton said that they were allowed to accept I think he said $90 a month in coal script for any coal miners that may have needed their car repaired or gas or something like that and then the company would reimburse eating's further for that but eventually the Union and the government stepped in and said no you can't do this anymore you have to pay these people in real money that's an overview of what it was like to live in the company town now we'll take a look at what it was like to work in the coal mine coal mining is probably the most dangerous profession of all back in the day I mean is a lot safer now but is still very dangerous but the laborers would work 10-hour days six days a week they were paid by the amount of coal that they mined and at the end of each shift they would have to go to the scale man and the scale man weighed their coal and paid them accordingly now he was probably the most despised person in town because he cheated them every time if they if they mined a ton of coal he would pay them for 80% and say the other was dirty coal which meant it had rocks or shale in it so he was always you know cheating them out of their their their pay that they were paid this was before they went to an hourly rate they were paid on how much they had mined the veins were usually anywhere from three to five feet high in this bottom picture you can see the miners laying on their sides with their picks some of them had to actually lay down and and and chip away at the coal they often worked in water and after the mines got established and there are a lot of people there they had a problem with rats so rats were always scurrying around the mine they said that sometimes in the winter these miners would go into work at 6 a.m. and work till 6 p.m. they would go in before the Sun came up and come out after it went down and they would go for a week and not see any daylight the only time they would see daylight is on Sunday when they had one day off in the early days they use mules to pull carts around the mine the mules were kept down in the mind they actually hollowed out stables where they kept the mules and they fed them watered them mules were probably valued more by the mining companies than the miners themselves if a miner mistreated a mule he would be fired on the spot my grandfather my great-grandfather was the blacksmith over at the harmer mine so one of his responsibilities was to go down and shoot you the mules when they needed new shoes and he told stories that mules are very intelligent and very stubborn and if a mule didn't like a certain miner he wouldn't work he wouldn't pull the cart and there were mules that like some miners and didn't like others so what a lot of miners had to do were bribed them and they would bring in apples or carrots and and slip them to him but he said there was one mule that liked chewing tobacco and what they would do is they would get a big wad of tobacco and open the mule and stick it in his lip and the mule would go on his way but for the most part these mules lived their entire lives in the mine they would bring them up to graze occasionally but they would have to do it at night because their eyes couldn't take the bright sunlight so they were a very valuable part of mining until the electric trains came in and then they were able to do away with the mules another animal that was important was the canary and I'm sure you've probably heard the term the canary in the coal mine before they had the detectors that could detect poisonous gases miners would take a canary down like this in a small cage and set it beside them as they worked reason being if there was ever black damp or poisonous gas and the oxygen level dropped the canary would faint and fall off its perch and that's how the new the miner knew that he had to get out and so for many years they would take their Canaries and go down with their lunch pails in their Canaries and would go down and dig in the in the coal mine and it saved many a coal miners lives as I said you know mining is probably the most dangerous job that there is out there this was in 1933 seven died in the Oakmont mine blasts how many people knew that there was an Oakland mine a couple of people the oak Mart mine was located along the Allegheny River between Oakmont and New Kensington up near where the the dam is just above there you've probably heard the term the town barking if you've heard of barking well that was the Oakmont mine there was a buildup of methane some type of spark sparked it and there was an explosion and seven miners died in that accident that was September of 1933 now every mine had a steam whistle that they used to signal the start of a shift so when the miners were getting ready they would blast the whistle they knew that the shift was starting time to go down in the mine anytime there was an accident in the mine that was serious they would just blow the whistle one long continual blast and that meant trouble in the mine now people in the town when they heard that long continual blast they knew trouble in the mine every one there had either a husband a son a brother a nephew uncle grandfather working in the mine so as soon as they heard that blast everyone would drop what they were doing and run to the mine because they wanted to find out if their loved one was okay this is a picture from that day in 1933 and you can see the people gathered around the mine waiting on word of their family members who were down in the mine they would wait until the miners were rescued or brought out this is another picture from the Oakmont mine so you can see all the people gathered there and there on the right hand side is the casket that they're bringing out loading into the hearse and they would wait there in the earlier days they had what they called Black Maria anybody ever hear that term Black Maria was a black wagon it could be a hearse like that or just a black buckboard wagon but anytime someone died in the mine as a result of the accident black Maria would come they would put the body in the wagon all the townspeople who were gathered there would follow the wagon in her large procession back to the miners house he was taken inside and laid out in the living room and buried from the living room and so that was always something that somebody dreaded now this was more prevalent out in the anthracite coal fields but you did have it here in in western Pennsylvania now the other thing that's interesting if a miner was disabled or killed in the mine his family had 30 days to vacate the company house so a lot of times you had young women lost their husbands they may have four or five children at home they had 30 days and they had to leave because they wanted someone who was going to work the mines so what would happen was you know if you had somebody from Italy they came here to work in the mines or let's say Slovakia something like that the husband was killed the wife now has to leave she's never been anywhere but the company town if she came from Europe she knows nothing about the culture outside of the coal mining town so what would happen is if a young man single man from Slovakia came to work at the mine he might be living in a boarding house they would marry and they would marry without often knowing each other it might be in a period of a week he would find out that so-and-so died his wife was now a widow he would propose they would get married without even knowing each other but it was a marriage of convenience of necessity because at that point the wife could stay in her house the children could stay in the house and this young man now had a wife to cook clean prepare his lunches wash his clothes and that's what happened a lot of times whenever someone died in the mine sometimes it worked out other times it didn't so you know it was what happened when people died in the mine now as I said my great-grandfather was the blacksmith over at Harbor ville as a result they had a nicer home and if you go up guys were in rode you've probably seen those row houses there on guys run if you go up towards the end there's some bungalows that are up there they're single-family homes well that's where the tradesmen live the the mill rights the electricians the blacksmith now might as I said a grandfather was the blacksmith he had three sons that lived it with him my grandfather and his two brothers all were miners worked in the mine and even though they worked in the mine the mine company went to my great-grandmother and said you have to leave because you don't have any blacksmiths here now we have to give this house to the blacksmith so they gave her the option she could move to the row houses over near the halton bridge and that's what they did so there was always turn if you weren't able to produce you have to leave probably the worst mining disaster occurred right across the river in Harwick are you all familiar with where Harwick is it's up on the top of the hill there where the expressway cuts through right by the serious center there the Shriners Center that's that's that's Harwick well on January 25th 1904 gas exploded in the mine and 181 workers died in the blast they said that the blast was so strong that the steel tipple folded like lace it was just all curled up there was a mule at the bottom of the shaft he was blown up the shaft and 200 feet into the air they said that the ground cracked above the explosion that's how forceful it was the public collected 40 thousand dollars people in western Pennsylvania collected forty thousand dollars to donate to the family families of these miners now $40,000 in 1904 is quite a bit of money and that's how much money was raised Andrew Carnegie was so moved by this that he donated an additional forty thousand dollars for the family so they had eighty thousand dollars now a lot of volunteers arrived on the scene and there were two men that came to try to help out one was named Selwyn Taylor he was from Pittsburgh and a Daniel Lisle from Castle Shannon Taylor was a mining engineer and Lao was a miner and so they volunteered to go down into the mine to see if they could rescue anyone and they went down and they found one man who was injured still alive and they were able to get him over and get him up out of the mine however they were overcome by the gas and both of those men died so once again Andrew Carnegie heard of this and because of that you may have heard of this he established the Carnegie Hero fund and he set aside a five million dollar endowment and that is awarded to ordinary citizens who have perform heroic deeds and it's given worldwide at this point but it had its start here in Harwick during the Harwick mine explosion many of the miners they were able to get everybody out but unfortunately some of them they weren't able to identify so they were buried in a mass grave over in the Springdale Cemetery there's a large monument to them over there well 34 years later there was another explosion in the Harwick mine this time 10 miners were killed the mine had been shut down that day normally there would have been close to 600 miners in the mine they were shut it down to perform some maintenance there was a buildup of poisonous gas and and exploded there were about 45 men in there 35 were able to escape but 10 of them were not one of the men who was in the mine was a gentleman by the name of Frank Sue's else key and he lived at Hardwick with his wife Mary and they had five children Walter Stella Eddie Rose and the youngest was a boy named Tony who was 13 years old when he heard the siren went off those steam whistle went off he was in school and he heard the steam whistle he knew there was trouble at the mine and he knew that his father was in the mine that day so he ran to the mine trying to find word that his father had made it out unfortunately he was told his father was trapped in the mine and wasn't able to escape they said that he sat in the superintendent's office for over 24 hours would not eat would not sleep would not drink anything until he got word that his father was okay unfortunately his father died in the explosion and he was one of the last men that they were able to pull out what's interesting is the night before Frank's wife named Mary had a dream a bad dream and she felt it was a premonition and she begged him not to go to work that day he did and he died frank says else ki is the grandfather of our friend were on Cecil we know Ron who's a member of the Historical Society and so it was his grandfather that died in the end the mine explosion so you know that does touch you know everybody in one way or another there's these mine accidents and this is an article that they wrote about this Tony says our ski weights all night for daddy dead in blast the pittsburgh press featured this article that they ran about the story i read another account of a lady who she was elderly when she wrote it that she grew up in Harmer belle and she talked about the greatest fear in the coal mining town is when the steam whistle would go off and she said that it happened many times while they were in school and after the whistle would stop they would hear footsteps come down the hall and it was the principal coming to tell a certain child that his father was in the mine and she said she used to hear the steps come down the hall and she would pray keep walking keep walking don't stop at my room because they were so afraid that it might have been her father and and she said that was a terrible fear that children had growing up in coal mining towns so another important part of coal mining and the coal mining towns were labor disputes miners worked under terrible conditions for very very little money and it took them years but they were finally able to fight the coal companies and gain work better working conditions better pay and it would constantly it was a battle between the coal companies and the unions but the first major strike occurred in 1892 180 thousand miners walked off the job in five states after wages were cut 30% on May 23rd fifteen hundred miners marched on a mine near Uniontown guards opened fire and killed five of them eight were wounded the coal strike lasted eight weeks and nothing was really accomplished now during this strike there were three mines out in the Penn Hills plumb area there was a unity mine the Oak Hill Mine and the Sandy Creek Mine and they were under the supervision of us mine superintendent by the name of Alex dearmond and he ran his mines with a steel fist and he told the men if you go on strike I will fire you all and I will bring in replacement workers and so they were afraid of them and even though as I said 180,000 miners were off the job it was pretty much the whole mining industry the are Matt's three mines kept working because they were afraid to take a chance and be fired so as a result all these miners from over western Pennsylvania West Virginia would come out to the mine at Unity Sandy Creek and Oak Hill and protest and pick it and it was almost like a party atmosphere because they would come and they would bring their families and they would camp in a farm they would find a farmer who would let them camp there and they would set up camp and a lot of these coal mining towns had brass bands and so they would march around and they would play their bands and everything and there was this one story I read in the newspaper that said that they all went to the unity mine and the brass band came and they were playing outside the gate and mr. D Armit just got tired of it so they had a train a locomotive sitting in the yard so he ordered the engineer to start just blasting the train whistle so every time the band would start to play he would just blast the train what so and round out the band and the band would try to drown doubt the track but yeah as I said that strike lasted eight weeks and nothing happened another strike occurred in nineteen ten and it was referred to as the Slovak strike of 1910 and on March 9th 1910 the miners at the Keystone Keystone coal mine in Westmoreland County went out on strike after wages were reduced by 16% in addition to that the government had imposed new regulations as far as helmets and lighting and safety equipment and they had to implement that and the mine companies told the miners that they had to buy that equipment on their own so between that and the the requirements they went on strike well originally 400 miners worked off the job and right away 100 were immediately fired after that the strike spread to 65 mines in the region and 15,000 miners went on strike the coal companies went to the court and asked for an injunction to evict striking miners from their homes so the Colca the Union set up tent cities outside of the coal mining towns and that's where they lived 16 miners were killed in the violence and this is a newspaper headline from the Pittsburgh Press that talks about the oppression of the of the miners here and it was a very political a lot of controversy pro and con against the miners now during this strike a lady by the name of Mary Harris Jones showed up does anybody know who Mary Harris Jones is mother somebody say mother Jones mother Jones yeah you've probably heard of Mother Jones magazine she was a union organizer back at the turn of the century and any time there was a strike she would come and she would organize the women support the women and children during the strike so she said that the women should go pick it at mind gates which they did well the coal companies were in with the Westmoreland County Sheriff he arrived on the scene and he arrested the women and charged them with disorderly conduct and inciting a riot mother Jones told them go to the hearing in Greensburg and when you go take your children with you so they did and they were found guilty and the judge said to them 30 days in jail or $30 well they were poor they didn't have $30 so he sent them to jail well they had their children with them no one to watch the children so the children went to jail with mothers Jones said don't worry I will bring milk I will bring fruit for the children but she said here's what I want you to do I want you to sleep during the day and stay up all night and sing sing as loud as you can sing happy songs sing sad songs sing one one at a time sing as a group but don't stop singing all night and that's what they did and by the third night the Westmoreland County Sheriff who lived next to the jail and the neighbors had had enough and let them go so the strike again ended not a whole lot was resolved and some of the miners were fired they had to leave the area if they worked for a certain company that owns multiple mines they would be blacklisted they couldn't work so they would have to leave the area completely and maybe go to West Virginia Ohio or Kentucky to find work now if you lived in a coal mining town the other thing that you paid attention to or what they called the coal police has anybody heard of the coal police okay call police originally the coal police were guards that were hired by the mining companies to guard the mines now remember the coal mining towns were private property these towns were built on coal mining property again like I said plum borough plum township a hundred years ago had no police force they had a constable but he didn't want to be bothered with all these immigrant miners that you know he didn't want any parts of that so if there was any trouble in the town say somebody drank too much somebody got in a fight some vandalism the coal police would handle it you know if somebody was drunk they'd get them home and and they more or less kept order in in the coal patches what happened though as we saw the conflict between labor and management these coal police transformed into thugs strike breakers they worked for the coal companies so if there were miners picketing the coal police would hire someone to go into their picket lines and incite trouble start a fight and then they would come in and just beat everybody with clubs things like that they had no Murat Miranda rights anything like that oftentimes what they would do if somebody minor was causing problems they would throw them in a warehouse in a garage at the mine for two or three days and no accounting for what they would do during strikes you weren't allowed in or out of the town unless you had a pass that lets you get around if there were more than three or four miners say they were just talking on on a street corner the coal police would come and scatter them because they said you're involved in union activities they had the right to burst into the house for no reason just to make sure there was no union organizing going on and so it was it was they really turned into an intimidating factor and you can see by these pictures the one guy has a ammunition belt slung across his shoulder there they were always on horses and they really inflicted terror in the people in the coal mining towns it was said that during one strike down in Logan's Ferry the coal mining town is up on the hill and they said they surrounded the coal mining town with barbed wire fence to keep people in keep people out and some of the old-timers I don't know if it's true but I heard them to say that they had actually set up machine guns at the entrance there was one Road up in there they set up guards with machine guns there just to keep order there was another large strike this one occurred April 1st 1927 two hundred thousand miners went out on strike the strike lasted throughout the summer there was really no movement on any side well in October the coal companies went to a judge kind of state judge here in western Pennsylvania and they asked for an injunction that if these miners did not return to work they had the right to evict them from the company housing they also received permission that they were allowed to take confiscate their personal belongings and auction them off for any back rent that was owed to them so winter was approaching they started to be evicted and so what they did the Mine Workers Union sent out supplies and they built what they called barracks and you can see these were the barracks at Renton pretty much just shacks four walls they said that they insulated them with old newspaper old rags whatever they could find some of them had a coal stove in the middle but they would build these there was a farmer by the name of Miller who lived near Renton and he gave them permission to build the barracks here and this is where the miners lived for the remainder of the strike the Union sent out rice and beans and things like that for them to eat and that's where they lived until the strike was over there were barracks in Harmar there were barracks and russellton out in Renton and that's how they survived the winter we're in these barracks there was a gentleman in New Kensington he was a real estate agent businessman his name was Fred broad and his mother-in-law was a lady by the name of Fannie Mae sellings if you've ever been up to New Kensington past the cemetery up on the hill there's one of those historical markers with Fannie Mae sellings on it what she was she was a union organizer and she came in 1919 and helped out a strike up in Natrona Heights at a coal mine and she was a troublemaker I mean she was instigating and the coal police shot her and murdered her and so as a result you know she was honored for her union organizing well Fred broad learned of what was going on in these coal towns about these auctions and how they were auctioning off these miners personal effects so he went to harm Ervil on the day of the auction and he spent ninety four hundred dollars buying back the miners possessions and then he gave them back to them he went to russellton the republic mines spent $7,500 he then went to rent and Curtis Ville kinloch and Harwick bought back all of the miners belongings and gave them back they said he spent thirty one thousand dollars of his own money buying back all the miners positions and he never asked for any money back but a lot of the miners didn't pay him but pay him back it took him a while but they were ever able to pay him back 11 months in the barracks the strike ended and they were able to go back into the company houses but had it not been for these barracks they really wouldn't have had anywhere to live during the winter months I know I've sort of painted a gloomy picture here it was a hard life I mean no doubt about it but these coal miners in their family were very resilient people very positive they had all this adversity but yet they were living the American dream they came here they were working and they constantly fought to make things better in the mine for their children who would be working in the mine and the other thing that kept them going is they knew that their children would do better their children had a chance they were receiving education x' high school you know some even had a chance at college and this is something they would have never had in their home countries so you know they did have a hard life but yet they they just kept at it and tried to make things better and so they did have other interests and one of the things that they were very serious about was their sports all of these coal mining teams had some type of sports most all of them had baseball teams some had basketball Harmar had a soccer team Renton had a baseball team and I read an article that said they played there was a school in Pittsburgh a church Catholic Church in Pittsburgh that came out to Renton on the train to play the play them in baseball well I guess Renton had a pretty good team and this team from Pittsburgh beat them well when they went to go home the players from Renton ran to the train station and wouldn't let them get on the train until they came back and played him again they wanted a chance to beat them over in harm availed some of you may remember they were known for their soccer team in 1956 the Harmar team won the US Open Cup in Chicago a group of coal miners young coal miners they had a chance to go to Europe to compete further but as I said they were poor they had no money and they really didn't have a sponsor so they weren't able to go to your this picture here they were featured in Sports Illustrated they did an article on them you can see the Harmar coal mine in the background but what they were known for the other picture they played in the snow and they use coal dust to mark the field and that's what they're there so in their how they use the coal dust to mark the field Logan's ferry they had a lot of social organizations in these coal mining towns Logan's ferry was known for their button box Club they traveled all over eastern United States to perform they were a group of accordion as' and saxophones and well known they've cut a couple records and these were all basically coal miners who did this on the side they formed organizations they the SNP J which is the Slovenian national benefit society most towns had an italian-american Club Polish Falcons so they did have an active social life even though they worked so hard religion was another important part of the coal mining community most cases the coal companies would donate a portion of ground that they could use for a church and since most of the people were Eastern Europe Italian heritage almost every coal mining town has a Catholic Church they're all very small if you've been over in route 28 there's a little st. Francis the little brick Church there this is Saint Januarius that's out and Renton what's interesting is they originally celebrated Mass on the second floor of the company store and that's where they held their mass in 1952 they finally had saved enough money to build a church so they began construction of this church here they literally built the church themselves the brick Masons laid the brick the plumbers from the mind would come and install the plumbing the electricians would come over do the electricians carpenters they would all do that after hours and on the weekends and they built a church as they could afford it the first mass was celebrated in 1953 and when they did it was basically just four walls block cylinder block walls they had no pews they had no carpeting they had no plaster and they would have pancake breakfasts and pork dinners and raise money and complete the church as they went it took them 50 years to complete the church they celebrated their 50th anniversary in in 2002 and that was the year they finally got air conditioning so 50 years but what's interesting in 1968 they were able to afford stained-glass windows they had just plain windows in there and this is one of the windows from the church it's a coal miner and you can see the coal miner and his wife and this is to honor the people who built the church and I just think that's a really neat tribute to the people who built the church so the coal mining towns are still there if you take a drive out in the country you'll see the homes that were once thriving villages after the Second World War the coal mining companies decided that they no longer wanted to be in the real estate business so they sold off the houses to the miners and they sold them at discount prices they gave him opportunity to buy their house and again the American Dream you know an immigrant a poor immigrant came here and he was finally able to buy a house and so thankful that he had that opportunity also what they did once they sold off the houses the streets the sidewalks the parks that were in these company towns they turned those over to the townships they mean municipalities so then the borough you know plum borough came in they installed utilities paved the streets sewers things like that parks were turned over as part of the community and so they were integrated into the larger community so you can take a ride anywhere around here and you'll see these communities still there some of them have additions that have been put on some are still the same but you go to new field Renton Indianola Harmar they're all there a lot of chant a lot of cases the company stores are still there however their other uses you know they warehouse little business small business but you'd be surprised how many of the company stores are still intact and of course the churches are still there you know people from the other part of the borough have-have started to join this church this man here they said that most coal miners had three pictures in their house they couldn't afford art that they had a picture of FDR the Pope in John L Lewis and it was under under the leadership of John Lewis that the United Mine Workers really gained the strength that they were able to demand and and and get better pay better benefits and better working conditions from the coal companies he was the one that really had consolidated power and was able to finally get these miners the the rights that they deserved these are just a few of the communities as they are now there's Harmar across the way there Renton Newfield russellton and Hardwick so you can see the houses are still there still have most of the flavor they had before you know there's still communities and what's interesting when I lived out in plumb we lived right near Renton and got to know a lot of people from Renton and a lot of the old-timers and they really had they love their town you know that that's their heritage then they had a lot of good community spirit from from those towns this is my family that's my grandfather on the left my great-grandfather in the center and my great-great grandfather they were all blacksmiths in the mind they worked over at harborville that's how we ended up in this area here my grandfather eventually left the mine and went to work down at Edgewater but he always said he felt safer in the mine and they ever did in the mill you know and they say mining is something that you can't you'll never learn to like it you either love it the first time you go in or you hate it that you can never learn to be a coal miner in 2009 you may I don't know if you ever seen this before this is a monument to the local coal miners this was through the efforts of the residents of Harmer Ville this sculpture and this is on port road if you know where the harmer fire department is right there near the dam this is right in front and so it's very a very nice monument if you have a chance I know usually when you're driving down through there you know your speed right by there but if it's worth stopping and take a look at it's it's really a nice monument to the coal miners of our area now if you're interested I have two books that I highly recommend that really will give you what it was like to live in a coal mining town this one here is called minor injustice the rag man's war now this is the second printing of it the original printing was called the bloody bucket and I don't know if the office thought that that was a little gruesome of a title so they changed the name but this is a historical fiction it takes place over in russellton Pennsylvania around 1910 and it's it includes a lot of true people places and events that happened and then the author leaves in a murder mystery but if you want to get a flavor for what it was like to live in a coal mining town this is an excellent read for you and you can pick this up on Amazon and I don't know if the library has a copy or not but highly recommend this book here and then this one here is called our coal mining heritage Harmar ville PA and this was put together by a group of people who were coal miners and descendants of coal miners over in Harmar bill again an excellent did a lot of person excuse me personal stories pictures of what it was like to live in harmony land this is all true in here and I think the library has a copy of this I don't know if it's still for sale or not they sold this to raise money for that so there still may be some outfit these two books were are good reads if you're interested in what it was like to live in the coal mining town [Music] [Applause] [Music] the Sun didn't shine I picked up my shovel and the walk took of mine I loaded 16 tons a number nine coal and the star boss said the world blessed my soul you look 16 body in another day older and deeper them Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store [Music]

Channel: Oakmont Historical Society

Views: 47,055

Rating: 4.9150944 out of 5

Keywords: oakmont historical society, oakmont bakery, oakmont, oakmont country club, coal miners, coal patch, western pennsylvania, Allegheny River, Coal, western pennsylvania coal

Id: wuZ460mKSe8

Length: 55min 54sec (3354 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 29 2018