Mining camp of National, Maryland. A gentleman I met there said these houses were
built by the Consolidated Coal Company. His wife said that her grandfather came to the Georges Creek area from Ireland to mine coal.
Old mine portal near National still bears the inscription "Mine No. 10"
This tipple near National is operated by the Winner Brothers. It is still in use, but the coal is being trucked out. I was told
that the local residents complained about the dust generated by the rail loadout and got it shut down. Despite the presence of coal gondola cars, I was told that the train hasn't been up here in about a year.
Judging by the vegetation on the railroad I belive it.
The post office and a historic coal miner's home in Barton, MD, with a reclaimed strip mine high on the mountain
in the background.
Detail of the miner's home in Barton. The structure could be old enough to predate the Civil War.
Burning stockpile and a very simple coal loading facility on Georges Creek. A front end loader was on site
to load coal into the trains. This facilty may still be in use. I'm not going to identify it because of the coal fire.
Coal mining settlement of Franklin, MD.
Another view of the miners' homes at Franklin.
A coal mining town named Barrellville, MD, near the Mason-Dixon Line.
Coal company houses at Gilmore, MD.
These stone houses at Eckhart are the oldest surviving coal camp houses I have ever seen. According to
vintage accounts, once there were several hundred of these stone cottages in the area.
There are also more conventional miners' homes in Eckhart, probably built at a later date.
Some of the remaining coal company housing at Borden Shaft, MD.
The often photographed iron furnace at Lonaconing, MD. When it was first fired by the Georges Creek Coal & Iron
Company in 1839 it marked the first successful manufacture of iron from coke. Where are the coke ovens?
A very old board-and-batten miner's home in Lonaconing, notable for its authenticity. It could date as far back as the 1840s.
I was told that these two family houses in Lonaconing were also built by the coal company, but probably at a later date than the
house pictured above.
One Lonaconing resident shared a memory with me of times so hard that poverty-stricken mining families snuck on the back end of the coal company's property and planted a garden patch "just to get by."
Buffalo Coal Company has a long history of mining coal on Georges Creek. Here is a facility which they may still
be using, called the "No. 5 Mine."
Conveyors, stacking tubes, and stockpiles of high-btu bituminous coal at the Buffalo Coal Co. Mine No. 5 facility on the edge of Lonaconing. This is basically a
material handling plant because strip coal doesn't need much processing.
Hidden away in the Buffalo Coal Co. Mine No. 5 plant is what looks like a remnant of the original Lonaconing tipple.
It seems wherever one looks along Georges Creek he or she can catch a glimpse of a strip mine like this one near Mount Savage.
These mine ventilation ruins were still in existence when the Historical American Engineering Record photographed them in 1993. They were scheduled for demolition and reclaimation later that same year.
The site is that of Consolidation Coal Company Mine No. 11, which closed in 1955. (Public Domain photo by John Herr, Courtesy of the Historic American Engineering Record [HAER])
Detail of the Lepley Ventilator, described as "one of the few centrifugal mine ventilation fans in the eastern
United States." It did not survive, however.(Public Domain photo by John Herr, Courtesy of the Historic American Engineering Record [HAER])
The other fan that was at the site, this Aerovane fan, was manufactured by the La-Del Conveyor and Manufacturing Company and installed in 1940. (Public Domain photo by John Herr, Courtesy of the Historic American Engineering Record [HAER])