Ruins of the Hazlett coke yard on the edge of Mount Pleasant Borough. These are some of the oldest coke oven ruins in Westmoreland County, being built in 1871 by Boyle & Hazlett Company. McClure Coke Co. operated the ovens in the 1880s. H.C. Frick Coal and Coke were the final owners of the Hazlett coke yard, which probably did not operate very far into the 20th Century.
If anyone is interested, the ruins of the Buckeye coke works are about a half a mile up the tracks from the Mullen ovens, although they are in very poor condition.
Frick Coke Co. map dated 1893 showing the location of the Hazlett coke yard in relation to Mount Pleasant Boro in the upper right.
Company store and patch town at Baggaley, PA, built in 1897 at the northern end of the Connellsville Coke Field by the Puritan Coke company. Of course H.C. Frick Coke eventually ended up operating it and they closed the coal mine and coke works at Baggaley in 1922.
This fan house between Shoaf and York Run was probably from the Smiley coal mine.
Here is the remains of the last major coal mine in Fayette County: US Steel's Mount Braddock mine, which closed in the mid 1980s. There was no processing plant there, as the direct ship coal was taken to the Robena plant and blended there. They later leased the facility to another company to gob out the last of the coal barrier, but it is idle now.
Ownensdale, PA, a coal and coke town originally named "Summit." The Summit coke yard was constructed as a Cochran concern in 1874. H.C. Frick had nearly 150 ovens in blast there around 1880.
Horses and mules that worked in the Kyle mine run wild from their stables in this circa 1940 photograph. Not too many years later the beasts of burden disappeared from the mines, replaced by modern machinery. (Courtesy Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Penn State Fayette)
A different style of company-built patch housing at Carpentertown, PA., This coal and coke operation, built in 1901 by the Mount Pleasant-Connellsville Coke Company, was one of the last to be constructed in the Mt. Pleasant to Latrobe section of the Connellsville Coke Field. Nearby mines named "Carpentertown" were owned by Sharon Steel in the 1960s.
This bridge abutment on Jacobs Creek is one of the last remnants of the Mount Pleasant Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In the background can be discerned the old rail bed of the spur that went up to the big coke yards at Bessemer and Morewood (Southwest Nos. 1 and 2).
The last vestige of the Bessemer patch on the edge of the shopping center between Mount Pleasant and Scottdale. The Bessemer coke plant and coal mine were opened in 1878 by C. P. Markle & Sons Coal Company. I am not sure when Bessemer shut down, but in 1900 it was reported that mining of the final section of the Bessemer mine had begun.
Detail of the rubblestone foundation of one of the company built houses at Bessemer.
Here is the Coalbrook patch town, opened in 1879 (although these houses might have been built later). J.R. Torrence, and later McClure Coke Co., owned and operated Coalbrook in later years. Of course, Frick finally muscled in and was the final owner. The mine closed in 1918.
These coke ovens up the track from Coalbrook were the Grace coke yard, and are among the oldest coke oven ruins in Fayette County, being built in 1875. John Moyer was operating Grace in 1880. A later operator was W.J. Rainey. The mine closed in 1927. The area is also known as Moyer.
1893 Frick Coke Co. map showing most of the Grace ovens. The patch town on the hill above the ovens is gone now, and there is a gun club there. Also, the Pennsville ovens, built in 1872, were near the present day site of the Everson exit of Route 119. Today there are only a few remanants of ovens at Pennsville coke yard (behind the Pennsville Professional Center). (Used with permission)
Remains of Stern Coal Company's Ball Mine, also known as the County Home Mine, on the edge of Uniontown.
A postcard of Frick's Davidson coke works on the edge of Connellsville. (Courtesy Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Penn State Fayette)
This company-built house is the last remnant of the coal patch of McClure in Upper Tyrone Township. Everyone focuses on the many H.C. Frick Coke Co. operations in the Connellsville Coke Field, but McClure Coke Co. was Frick's biggest
competitor before 1900. Both the Painter coke yard and the Diamond coke yard were at McClure, the former being built in 1871 by Col. Isreal Painter and acquired by McClure Coke Co. in 1878. The Diamond coke works were originally operated by Lomison & Stauft. Two coke works, a whole patch town, and nothing left but this one house.
Sealed up mine entry at Adelaide, named after Frick's wife. (Courtesy Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Penn State Fayette)
The Oliver patch in 1995. Oliver is named for the company that built it - Oliver and Snyder steel. (Courtesy Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Penn State Fayette)
Call them gob piles, slate dumps, or bony piles, but they are the results of coal mining and coke making down through the years, and they still can be found throughout the Connellsville Field. As they are reclaimed, however, their numbers become fewer every year.