The tipple at Mather Colliery, a captive mine built in 1917 by Picklands, Mather & Co., a steel company in Cleveland, OH. In 1928, an explosion in the Mather mine killed 195 miners, one of the worst coal mine disasters of all time.
Another historic mine structure at Mather. Mather No. 1 was in the Pittsburgh seam of coal.
Mather, PA looks like a pleasant country hamlet , but is actually a pleasant coal patch. The Mather coal mine closed in 1964.
Guy writes, "I spent all my growing up in Mather, from 1928 until I went into the service in 1946... Father worked for the mining operation in Mather from 1926/27 until his retirement. Didn't work in the mine, was a engineer in the powerhouse... In 1928 there was a explosion in the mine which took 195 lives, my dad was in the mine rescue teams at that time and helped with the rescue operations. My mom used to tell us that they served pork chops to the rescue teams at one or two times and my father wouldn't touch pork chops for years. Growing up in Mather was very nice. The community really was a tight knit group of people, with a wide group of nationalities represented. Many of the same families still live there and some have actually moved back to Mather from other places where they had relocated."