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HOOVER, PA


Oct. 2002 image by author

These bee-hive coke ovens are at Hoover, PA. They are bank ovens, and the row of block ovens has been demolished there. The elevated section in front of the ovens that the coke workers stood on has been excavated to make room for trucks that reclaimed the slate dump.


Oct. 2002 image by author

James H. Hoover operated the coal mine and coke yard at Hoover. A resident of the Hoover patch told me that the ovens were later operated by Max Nobel and closed down around 1958. In this picture a latter day repair to the ovens is visable where the block meets the cut stone. Many of the ovens in Fayette County that had been cold since the 1920s were refurbished for war time coke production during the 1940s.


Oct. 2002 image by author

This room at the end of the bank of coke ovens at Hoover was where supplies like oil were stored.


Oct. 2002 image by author

Some of the Hoover "patch" in the Klondike Coke Field. A resident of Hoover said that the patch was never very big and there wasn't even a company store. He was even nice enough to walk the coke ovens with me.


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