1950 picture taken at Valley Camp No. 5 mine (courtesy of Ken C.)
Another vintage shot of the No. 5 mine of Valley Camp Coal Co. (courtesy of Ken C.)
A picture taken 50 years ago of a portal into the Freeport seam at the Kutsch mine near Tarentum. (courtesy of Ken C.)
LIGONIER FIELD
Westmoreland County
PUNXSUTAWNEY FIELD
Jefferson and Indiana Counties
BENNETTS BRANCH FIELD
Clearfield and Elk Counties
PANHANDLE FIELD
Greene and Washington Counties
PA BITUMINOUS COALFIELDS NOT COVERED BY THIS WEBSITE
SAGAMORE FIELD (ARMSTRONG COUNTY)
LOW GRADE DIVISION FIELD (ARMSTRONG & CLARION COUNTIES)
BUTLER FIELD (BUTLER COUNTY)
MERCER FIELD (MERCER & LAWRENCE COUNTY)
CLARION FIELD (CLARION COUNTY)
MOUNTAIN FIELD (CAMBRIA & CLEARFIELD COUNTIES)
MOSHANNON FIELD (CLEARFIELD COUNTY)
SNOWSHOE FIELD (CLEARFIELD & CENTRE COUNTIES)
CAMERON FIELD (CAMERON COUNTY)
OVERMONT FIELD (McKEAN COUNTY)
NORTH CENTRAL FIELD (BLOSSBURG-RALSTON FIELD) (LYCOMING, TIOGA, & BRADFORD COUNTIES)
BERNICE FIELD (SULLIVAN COUNTY)
Current condition of the Wilpen mining camp, near Ligonier, PA. The patch housed the workers of Shenango Furnace Company's drift mouth mine and coke ovens, which were of the rectangular design. The Baton Coal Co. was the final owner of the Wilpen mine and coke yard, and they closed the operation in 1951.
Rare rectangular coke ovens at Fort Palmer,PA. The Fort Palmer Coal and Coke Co. constructed the coke works, coal mine, and patch town in 1907, but nothing remains but the ovens and building foundations and chimneys in the surrounding woods.
This was one of the few remaining wooden tipples in the country when this photo was taken in July 2002, and it was located in Clark Hollow near Ligonier. Joe W. writes that it "operated as late as 1986.
It was a one man operation owned by Theodore S... of Latrobe. He would
mine a few hundred tons and sell it for house coal each year. I believe he
mined about 8 tons his last year. The mine opened in the 1950's and [Mr. S.]
bought it in the late 50's ... Hard to believe he used to push a loaded mine car (they are inside the
mine apparently) up to the top of that tipple and dump it."
As of January 2003 it had collapsed, but the mine portal is still there.
The ruins of Cacade Coal and Coke Company's Sykesville mine on the edge of Sykesville in Jefferson County. A gentleman in the area told me
that the mine closed in 1938, yet these remnants of the mine are still extant in November 2005.
An explosion of the Sykesville mine in 1911 caused the death of 21 people. This picture, courtesy of MSHA's website, depicts the aftermath of
that disaster. Judging by the size and angle of the conveyor the preparation plant must have been huge.
A few of the remaining homes in Adrian, PA, named for Adrian Iselin. He was one of the founders of the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Company,
who constructed this town to house the miners of the Adrian No. 1 mine in the Lower Freeport coal seam.
The houses on the other side of the street in Adrian. All of these houses have the same green siding, which may have been installed by the coal company many
years ago.
This is how the coal company town of Rossiter, PA looked in 1990. This is approximately 90 years after the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp. built the town. The coal
mines at Rossiter closed in the mid 1940s. (Public domain photo by Scott Brown, courtesy HABS/HAER)
Lesa contributes this rare picture of the operations of the Panther Run Coal Company at Pardus, PA. Lesa says, "At one time the Panther Run Coal Company was big enough to have company houses and a school."
These beehive coke ovens still exist in Tyler, PA.
Ruins of the coal mines are beside the coke ovens. There is a concrete tunnel with holes on the top of it that discharge onto a conveyor belt that is still inside the
tunnel covered with coal. Behind this is two large stone trolley track supports.
Part of the Tyler coal mining camp. In addition to the Tyler Coal Company's mines at Tyler, Cascade Coal and Coke Co. operated a coal mine at Tyler.
Byrndale was a large coal town with both Shawmut Mining Company and Shade Valley Coal Company mining coal there. This is some of the housing that the coal companies constructed in Byrndale.
Another street in the large Byrndale coal company town.
"Salt box" type company houses in Byrndale. The town was actually mentioned in the Woody Guthrie song "The Dying Doctor."
This is the world's second largest coal preparation plant - CONSOL's Bailey Plant, which processes coal from the Bailey and Enlow Fork longwall mines. This is in western Greene County, an area which
wasn't opened up for large scale coal mining until well after the "coal patch" era. Some people might consider this the southern end of the Pittsburgh Coalfield, while others, such as myself, think of it as a seperate coalfield. The long
and short of it is that this is one of the last areas where large blocks of Pittsburgh seam coal reamain, though it is of a steam coal nature rather than a metallurgical nature. (Photo courtesy of True Photography)