Today we visited the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine which involved riding a miner's car approximately 1500 feet into the side of a mountain in an actual low-seam "drift" coal mine. The conductor of the car was a retired miner with over 40 years experience, and he narrated along the way. This was known as the Phillips-Sprague Mine and it operated from 1889 until 1953 when it became property of the City of Beckley. It was converted into an exhibition mine in 2008.
In addition to the actual coal mine there are buildings that have been restored that would have been found in a coal mining camp, such as a coal camp church, the company store, a coal company house, and the superintendent's home. They also have a museum, a great gift shop, a children's museum, and an Appalachian frontier settlement. So lots to see and do!
We arrived about 15 minutes before they opened, but there was ample parking even for the big ol' brown truck. As we parked there were two large white vans that pulled up full of excited kids along with chaperones. We struck up a conversation and they were a Scouting group from Great Britain visiting the United States! It became evident these boys and girls were very well-behaved and respectful! They had been white water rafting on the New River and have spent some time working on merit badges at a Scout camp in South Carolina(?).
We paid our fee, got our wrist bands and then made our way directly to the "cars" That would take us underground.
During the safety briefing they warned us about keeping our heads down, our arms and legs in the cars and watching the "ceiling" as there are reinforcing bolts that protrude down. They were not kidding!!
He was not very tall and his helmet was hitting the ceiling
Periodically along the way the cars would stop and the miner would brief us on various aspects of mining. It was very interesting! He went into detail explaining about the equipment the miners used. He did a demonstration of the calcium carbide lamps that used water to produce acetylene to burn for light.
The coal seam was only about three foot thick. They would hand-drill and blast, then hand-load the coal onto very low carts and it would be hauled out. Each miner had a bunch of ID tags or "chits" with a number on it and they would get credit for that car-full. The chit was placed on a nail on the car. Each car got them about $0.25. The cars had to pass under a piece of wood on chains, and the board had to move or the car was short and they were shorted a few cents. Sometimes they would switch the chits to claim someone else's coal, so they started to nail the chits to a board and throw the board into the bottom of an empty car before loading the coal. Problem solved!
Our tour guide spent a lot of time talking about mine safety. Before the days of modern atmosphere detectors they used a special kind of lamp to detect methane gas and the absence of oxygen. They also used the infamous "canary"! Feet down, good to go. Feet up, head for the exit!
Some other pictures in the mine:
Kettle bottoms are dangerous pieces of petrified wood imbedded in the coal.
They can fall out and injury the miners. Sulphur balls are just that. Worthless spheres of sulphur imbedded in the coal
A kettle bottom
A sulphur ball
Funny story about the miner's lunch pails. They were multi-part. The top park held the dessert, then there was two other parts, and the larger bottom part held their drinking water.
To thwart stealing of drinking water the miners would put their false teeth in there LOL
Finishing up in the mine, on May 4, 2023 Brad Paisley made a music video in the mine where this sign is located. Our tour guide was in the video. The song is pretty cool, about the severe drug abuse problem in this area. You can click here and watch/listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNHzXGTpSnc
We emerged from the mine and toured the other buildings on the grounds finishing up with the museum on the second story of the main building.
Miner's house
Coal camp church
Main building museum. There were quite a few paintings about mining life and various displays of mining equipment. Very interesting stuff!
This really shows how low those cars were.
Safety equipment
A scooter used to travel down one rail of the train line to get in and out of the mine.
Notice the lunch pail on there.
Coal towns had their own ball teams, and the players were paid to play
and were given easier jobs in the mines.
and it has been interesting to learn more about it.
Tomorrow we pull chocks and motor on down the road to Asheville NC for the next few days.
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