A Visit to Coal Country

Now I get the song Sixteen Tons.

Last Christmas, instead of socks, I decided to give Dad the present of a day trip. I found a coal mine tour that seemed perfect, although it wouldn’t open until spring.

Last Thursday, we had off work for Ascension Day, and so Dad, Mom, and I drove seventy miles north to No. 9 Coal Mine in Lansford, Pennsylvania.

This mine operated from 1855 to 1972 , the world’s longest continuously operated deep anthracite coal mine. Anthracite coal is hard, shiny coal that burns more cleanly than other coal. After shutting down, the No. 9 mine sat abandoned for several decades before opening as a tourist attraction in 2002. It’s inspected daily, just like a working mine.

Both of my parents remember burning coal in the winter as children. Dad likes history and so do I, but we know little about coal mining. Our ancestors were farmers.

We got to the mine, bought tickets, and waited in the museum until our eleven o’clock tour. “Look,” I said to my parents as we looked at a display of mining caps and helmets. “Those early ones look like they have a small oil lamp for a light.” (Later the guide explained that early mining caps were canvas with a wick-and-oil light.)

To get into the mine, we rode on old rail cars 1600′ into the mountain.

Once inside, we got off the train and followed the tour guide through the tunnels where mules and miners once walked. The tunnels were lit with electric lights and passages to dangerous areas were blocked. The walking tour lasted about an hour.

“This mine has four levels. We are on level 1.” the guide told us. “After the mine closed and the pumps ceased, the groundwater levels returned to normal, flooding the third and fourth levels, so they are lost. I’ve been to the second level, but it’s not worth the trip.”

The elevators that once hauled men and coal up and down the shaft still hang from massive chains, although they are bolted in place with steel plates now. Originally, the elevators (called cages) were controlled by a steam engine outside the mine. The operators on the outside would communicate with the men inside using steam whistles.

Next to the shaft, we peered way down deep to the flooded third level. A steel grate covered the hole, but the guide warned us that if we dropped our keys or glasses, they were gone forever.

After drilling holes and inserting dynamite, the miner would yell, “Fire in the hole!” three times before detonating the explosives. After the dust settled, the miner would test for gas (methane gas forms with coal), then attack the coal with a pickaxe and shovel and load the cart. He would reinforce the new section of the tunnel with beams (to keep it from collapsing), and start the process all over again.

“When was the last cave-in?” asked someone on our tour.

“Right over there,” said the guide, pointing into a chamber with a pile of rocks inside. “It happened sometime when the mine was closed between 1972 and 1995, when they started restoring the mine.”

Miners were paid according the amount of coal they extracted from the earth, but they lived in company-owned housing and purchased their supplies and grub from the company-owned store. Wages and prices were carefully controlled so that getting ahead was barely possible. Some mines, including the No. 9, even had their own police force. Hence the line from Sixteen Tons: “I owe my soul to the company store.”

Some men and boys returned to their company-owned home in coffins. The youngest death recorded in the mine was 6-years-old.

Technology upgrades and labor reforms brought huge improvements in the 1900s.

Since my grandmother passed, we found a ledger in her house from the 1890s that belonged to my great-great-grandfather, Jacob Rissler. The ledger, in beautiful script, records the work Jacob did as a hired man for a local farmer— planting corn, quarrying stone, hauling lime, all for $.75 per day. Backbreaking, boring work that only seldomly involved dynamite, but it sounds like paradise compared to a coal miner’s job.

“Now I appreciate that coal more than I did as a child,” Mom said. She thought fetching a bucket of coal from the coal shed every day after school was a hardship.

Many of the miners were European immigrants, including Italians, Irish, and Poles. After the tour, we ate sandwiches at Tommy’s Italian Specialty Shop in Coaldale. A cash-only restaurant, it looked like the type of place Peter Santenello would visit on one of his YouTube videos.

Despite the history, people in this region don’t hate coal. I took a picture of a sign in town reading “Everybody’s goal is mine more coal. ” In Coaltown, just down the road from the No. 9, is Lehigh Anthracite, a surface mine. Stripe mining might scar the earth, but now I realize how much safer it is.

On the way home, we stopped at Hawk Mountain and hiked about a mile to a lookout. We saw only one hawk, but we also saw deer and a porcupine— the first porcupine I’ve seen in the wild. Not as spiky-looking as imagined.

If you enjoy history or learning about nature, I highly recommend the No. 9 Coal Mine. We had an excellent tour. All ages would enjoy this, as long as you don’t get scared by being underground. Sneakers and a hooded jacket recommended. Mining helmets are available if you want to wear one (I toured a silver mine once were they were required, but thankfully not at this mine.) Ticket prices are reasonable.

I liked Hawk Mountain, too. There’s various hiking trails, with different difficulty levels. The cost wasn’t super cheap, but it’s a well-kept. More info about Hawk Mountain here.

Amazing what you can learn on a day trip.