Irwin Gas Coal Company opened the Irwin No. 3 and 4 mines and the coal mining village of Elrico circa 1920. Both mines had their own tipples—one on each end of Elrico. This company had other mines in Westmoreland and Fayette Counties as well. The coal mines at Elrico were closed in December 1951.
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Elrico "coal patch town."
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There are also these cottage-style company houses that reflect "model" company town reforms in worker housing.
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Two-story company houses that were located near the No. 3 tipple.
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Old mine maps list this as the company store. It doesn't look like a company store and is now obviously a residence, but that's what the mine maps say.
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I believe the H.A.E.R. survey back in the 1990s thought that this building was the company store. The section on Elrico reads, "the company store is a two-story wood-frame building with clapboard siding; it measures 75'x35' and contains a gable roof covered with asphalt shingles, an ashlar foundation, and a storefront of large multipaned windows in wooden architraves; the first floor serves as a grocery and the second floor contains apartments." But I think that this may have been a "mom and pop" store.
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Remaining slate dump near the site of the now-removed No. 4 tipple.
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Sources:
Fitzsimons, Gray, editor. Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania - An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites. National Park Service, 1994.
Blueline map titled, "Irwin Gas Coal Co., Mine No. 4" by the Irwin Gas Coal Co. Engineering Department dated May 1, 1923.
