The Richeyville patch (and nearby Daisytown) housed the workers of Vesta Coal Company's Vesta No. 4 mine, once the largest bituminous coal mine in the world. Vesta Coal Co. was J&L Steel's coal mining arm.
The town was built in 1918 and named for George Richey, on whose farm the coal
town was built.
These old buildings at Richeyville were part of the Vesta No. 4 mine complex.
The shaft hole is still there, too. The mine closed in 1957, the company store in 1959. Vesta No. 4 was reopened on a scaled-down basis in the 1960s and closed for good around 1980.
Abandoned multi-family housing at Daisytown, another patch to house workers of the huge Vesta No. 4 mine.
These one-story two-family company-built houses are unique to Vesta Coal Company's Daisytown patch.
John writes, "About Vesta 4 in Richeyville being the largest mine in the world: It was actually the combination of Vesta 5 and Vesta 4 that was the largest mine in the world. The company broke a wall (or many walls) to join the two. The Vesta 5 Mine was so large that it had ventilator shafts in Beallsville, Pa. (a few miles west of Richeyville) and near Marianna. There were large fans at these shafts, housed in sheds that were the shape of an old-time oil derrick. The fans were antiquated and unreliable. When it rained, they shut down. The company frequently would have to send an employee out to watch the fans and restart them manually if they konked out. My dad often got pulled from his machine shop work and drove out to one of the fans to sit for 8 to 10 hours."
Remains of a fan house for the Vesta No. 4 Mine as it looked in March 2006. The man in the picture is standing on
the bearing support for one of the squirrel cage fans. (Photo courtesy of Pete and Mike)
The power house at the fan complex (Photo courtesy of Pete and Mike)
Remnant of a slope portal for the Vesta No. 4 mine. Pete writes, "This
was probably shut down when the miners began using Richeyville as
their entry." (Photo courtesy of Pete and Mike)