Sunday, February 5, 2023

Ellsworth and Cokeberg, PA: Bethlehem/Lackawanna/Ellsworth Coal Mines

1900 Ellsworth, #51: (Satellite, vegetation is more prolific in the East than the Midwest. This is greenland instead of brownland)
Equipment shaft: (Satellite, Wilson Slope Shaft) This also served as an escape hatch. [CoalCampUSA]
1902 Cokeburg, #53: (Satellite, Ontairo Mine)

The numbers above are Bethlehem's numbers. The Ellsworth Coal Company numbered the Ellsworth mine as #1 and #4 and the Cokeburg mine as #3. [rootsweb-ellsworth]

Both of these mines were in the Pittsburgh Coalfield.

Ellsworth


(I lost the URL for this reference.)
[Note the row of beehive ovens for making coke in the hillside by the tracks.]

Remembering Bethlehem Mines posted
Ellsworth circa, 1913

I think what is labeled "Conveyors" were cable ways to build the slate dump. The two circles on top of the hill were towers. They held cables that went down to the square, which was a transfer station. Tram cars hauled the waste slate from the coal washer down by the railroad to the transfer station. Most of the coal was shipped to Bethlehem's Sparrows Point. [CoalCampUSA]
1954 Ellsworth Quad @ 24,000

"In January Mine 60 will acquire much of Mine 51's machinery, equipment and employees to form the Mine Eighty-Four Complex. "It's not a one-day type of turnover," said Thomas Mucho, superintendent at Mine 60. "We've been working on this for several years now." Mucho said the consolidation process was stepped up when the two United Mine Workers locals - No. 1197 at Mine 60 and No. 1190 at Mine 51 - merged April 1. By consolidating the two mines, Bethlehem hopes to retain all of its employees - including 575 miners from Mine 60 and nearly 600 from Mine 51 ..." [CoalCampUSA]

Cokeberg

Like other small southwestern Pennsylvania towns, Cokeburg PA formed because of the coal industry.  "James Ellsworth built the model coal company town of Ellsworth, PA, he then began to construct another patch town and coal & coke colliery a few miles away. Ellsworth Coal Co. called this Ellsworth No. 3, but we now know it as Cokeburg. In 1902 the first coal was shipped from Cokeburg. Lackawanna Steel Co. purchased the Cokeburg and Ellsworth mines in 1907. Then in 1922 Lackawanna Steel and Bethlehem Steel merged, and Bethlehem operated the mines under some of their mining subsidiaries like Bethlehem Mines Corp. and Industrial Collieries. (Bethlehem also owned Marianna No. 58 and, later, Somerset No. 60 coal mines in the vicinity.) Bethlehem designated Cokeburg their No. 53 mine, and they closed it in 1953. By then Cokeburg had become one of the few coal company towns in Western PA to become a borough. Like all the other patches Cokeburg was an immigrant magnet, and, as recently as the 1990's, had many Croation families." (Quoted from CoalCampusUSA website).
1939, Penn State Digital Collections: T.R. Johns Collection via rootsweb-cokeburg via CoalCampUSA
[CoalCampUSA has several photos of the company town.]

I'm guessing that Ontario Mine was another name for Mine #53 because I could not find another mine near Cokeburg.
1954 Ellsworth Quad @ 24,000

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