My Favorite Scrap Yard Explored

[rake60]

As most of you know, I'm a history buff.
I knew the scrap yard that I shop for stock at was in the area of a coal mine
that many of my distant ancestors, including both of my Grandfathers had
worked in at a much too young age.

A little reseach turned up this article.
Stump Creek:
Was originally called Kramer, because this town was built on what was originally the farm of George Kramer which he purchased in 1862. Mr. Kramer was also a lumberman who rafted logs down the Mahoning Creek and then onto Pittsburgh via the Allegheny River. At the time of his death, he was the school director and the township supervisor. In 1899 his widow sold the land to a mining company and a mining town was built. The mine shaft was dug at the current site of Gruda Metals who now operates a very large scrap metals operation. The company store was on Rt.119 where a tavern now sits. Many company houses were built in the 1920's. When the post office was established (date not given) the name was changed to Stump Creek after the little stream that runs through the lands of the George Kramer farm.

On my last visit there I found the owner and asked him where the portal was to the original
mine. He pointed to the ruins of a large red brick building and said, "It was in the center of that
building. The riveted iron beams you can see around it are parts of the old main hoist beam."

My Grandfathers were in their mid teens when they rode that hoist down into that mine.
They worked 10 hours a day for $3.00 a week mining coal with a pick and shovel in areas
where the ceiling was 19" above the rock shelf they were laying on. It was a miserable
way to earn a living. No battery lamps. Their light was from an open flame on an oil lamp
that was hooked to their hat. Not a hard hat, just their old church had that had become too
old and worn to be acceptable as a dress hat.

I've found much more than a cheap metals source at the grounds of the Gruda Metals yard.

Rick

 

[GailInNM]

Rick,
Thanks for the memories.

When I was but a young lad,in the 1940's, my father was the mine engineer at a coal mine in the upper rockies of Colorado. It was a fairly typical coal mine of the era. The town was owned by the company. There was one private home there. It was owned by the Doctor who took care of the miners dependents. His office was in part of the house. The miners were taken care of by the company doctor. The shopping area of town was one building and the building and everything in the building was run by the company except for a little section at the end which was a Post Office which served the town and surrounding area. The rest of the building haoused the "Company store" where one could get groceries and personal items, a drug store with a soda fountain where the older kids could hang out, and a bar where the miners would hang out.

All the houses for the married population and the boarding house for the single miners were owned by the company. As the mine engineer, my father was in management and we had a nicer house by the standards of the day. Kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. Being a coal town, heat was by coal stove. There was a pot belly stove in the living room and a coal cook stove in the kitchen. In the winter we mostly closed off the living room except for special occasions, thus the heat for the house was the cook stove in the kitchen. If you burned junk coal, the coal was free, but the price paid was in all the clinkers that had to be cleaned out of the stove. You could buy good coal from the company, but many just scoured the area for what fell off the rail cars when they were loaded. That was part of the kids jobs. While the houses had running water, there was no running hot water. Saturday night was bath night and the water was heated on the cook stove. Everyone used the same water in the tub. The girls and women got to go first and then the boys. The miners could shower in the shower room next to the steam plant.

That was how I got my first "taste" of steam. Sometimes my father would take me down to the miners shower. There were two rules that must be obeyed. Always turn the cold on first. Always use a washcloth to turn on the hot valve. You see, the hot was really hot as it was live steam from the steam plant. It would mix with the cold and condense and heat the water.

The mine was closed in 1948, and the company auctioned off all the houses. The houses were all on piers and had to be moved. One house was left and given to a local sheep herder in return for him watching over the mine head to prevent the curious from getting into the mine and being killed. The mine head and air shafts were sealed, but people would still try. All the mine equipment was salvaged and moved to another company town.

Up until about 1970 I could still visit the town site and find the concrete piles that our house sat on. Now the land has been sold and there are fences and no trespassing sighs everywhere. For those interested, the town name was Mount Harris and was located about 16 miles west of Steamboat Springs, CO on highway US40. It has not existed on maps for 40 years and the highway has been rerouted a little bit in that area. All that remains is a roadside historical marker with a few photos of the old town and a brief history of the town on it.

Gail in NM,USA

 

[Bernd]

Rick,

Curiosity got the best of me and I just had to do a Google map of Stump Creek. My parents used to have close friends that lived in Bradford. Pa. a long time ago. Looks like your about 3 hours south of me. I used to do a lot of railfanning (train watching) back in the early 70's. I pretty much covered all of mid to eastern Pa. Never got much east into the north east part of Pa., bascially your area.

Knowning your that close I'd venture a day trip to see your shop some time. :-* I'm sure my wife won't mind if I took her VW Bettle (Buggsy) out for a Spring/Summer spin. :

Bernd

 

[rake60]

Your welcome here any time Bernd.

Gail, this entire area was built around the coal industry and steam was
the power source of the day. I found this picture of the towns passenger
train station that was taken in 1905.

That station is gone now, but I remember when it was still standing.
When I was about 14 years old our home was less than 100 yards away
from it. Every now and then a few of the rotten local neighborhood kids
would break into it to explore.

Rick

 

[Brass_Machine]

Rick,

Did I pass by that on the way to your place? I remember seeing some broken down brick buildings, old trains and cranes on rt 119??

Eric

 

[GailInNM]

Rick,
Now you made me go look in my photo stash.

Mount Harris as it looked when I was living there. Our house is hidden behind the two trees in the left foreground. The power plant, where the showers were, is of course where the 4 smoke stacks are. The power plant supplied steam to the steam driven hoist engines and ran the piston steam engines that generated the DC electricity for the mine operations such as the 8 to 10 foot diameter ventilating fans and the pumps to keep the mine dry. A turbine driven alternator supplied the town and offices with AC.

At the right end of the open field and hidden behind the power plant was the "powder" building where the explosives used in the mine were stored. As the open field was where we kids played, it was "suggested" that we do not play too close to it. OSHA was not around yet.

Sewage disposal was individual cesspools for each house that had indoor plumbing. Some did not. These would get full. Standard practice was to put about a quarter stick of dynamite in it to loosen things up. My father had "powder monkey" papers so this duty fell to him part of the time. I got to watch. I was always disappointed as nothing really happened. Just a muffled sound and ground didn't even shake any.

The town water supply was a wooden water tank on the hill behind the smoke. Water was taken from the Yampa river, filtered, chlorinated, and pumped up to the water tank by a steam pump. The chlorine was added by a small variable stroke piston pump that was driven by the water pump. The stroke was adjusted to keep the level of chlorine at the desired level. The chlorine came in solution and could be obtained in various strengths. Once a solution of several times the strength normally used was added to the system. The drinking water was kind of potent for a while.

I may have fibbed about building ownership in my previous post. We had a small passenger depot which would have been owned by the railroad. Only a small portion of the population had an automobile, so once a month or so they would take the train to go shopping at a nearby larger town to get supplies not carried by the company store. We had a car so we were not affected by this.

 

[rake60]

That's some great stuff Gail!
This kind of ammunition could get anyone interested in steam modeling!

Eric you actually did pass by the old Kramer mine site, but it is
back a dirt road off Rt 119 and isn't easily visible.

The site that you did see is yet another scrap yard about 5 miles
north of the Kramer grounds. That yard is on the site of the old
Cascade Coal and Coke Company near Sykesville PA.
Does this look familiar?

In 1911 there was an explosion in that mine that killed 21 people.
This picture that includes two of the buildings that you saw still standing
is of the damage after that explosion.

The Kramer mine experienced a similar explosion in 1936 that killed 9 miners.
My Grandfather was 26 year old that year and was working that mine.
It just wasn't his time to go yet. These mines have claimed members of
family. The closest relative was my Great Uncle who fell down a vertical mine
shaft that was under construction. He was on a scaffold loaded with red brick
reinforcing a wall when the cables failed. He fell 300 feet with the bricks and
landed on his feet in 3 feet of water. He was dead on impact.
My Grandfather was the Superintendent on that job when that happened.
How do you go home and say "My brother died working under me today." ?

People complain about stress these days... ???

Rick

 

[rake60]

That's some great stuff Gail!
This kind of ammunition could get anyone interested in steam modeling!

Eric you actually did pass by the old Kramer mine site, but it is
back a dirt road off Rt 119 and isn't easily visible.

The site that you did see is yet another scrap yard about 5 miles
north of the Kramer grounds. That yard is on the site of the old
Cascade Coal and Coke Company near Sykesville PA.
Does this look familiar?

In 1911 there was an explosion in that mine that killed 21 people.
This picture that includes two of the buildings that you saw still standing
is of the damage after that explosion.

The Kramer mine experienced a similar explosion in 1936 that killed 9 miners.
My Grandfather was 26 year old that year and was working that mine.
It just wasn't his time to go yet. These mines have claimed members of
family. The closest relative was my Great Uncle who fell down a vertical mine
shaft that was under construction. He was on a scaffold loaded with red brick
reinforcing a wall when the cables failed. He fell 300 feet with the bricks and
landed on his feet in 3 feet of water. He was dead on impact.
My Grandfather was the Superintendent on that job when that happened.
How do you go home and say "My brother died working under me today." ?

People complain about stress these days... ???

Anyway, back to the Kramer Mine.
My Grandpa's favorite stories were about the mules.
They didn't have a cable system to move the coal cars under ground.
The cars were pulled by mules. They were stabled underground and never saw
the light of day. He said those mules could see in the dark. If they were led
too close to a portal where the sunlight came in they'd get crankey.
He said: "A cranky mule ain't a pretty thing!" LOL

Rick

 

[Powder keg]

Rick,

When my grandpa was a young man, he bought a old mule from a salt mine in Salt lake city, UT. The funny thing was is that the mine shut down at 4 o'clock every day. So at 4 o'clock every day the mule headed for the barn. It wasn't worth anything after 4) Made my grandpa so mad.

Later, Wes

 

[Bernd]

Thanks Rick.

After reading all other messages it makes me wonder how the population increased. Must be we were just luckier in those days.

Bernd

 

[rake60]

Gail your post about growing up in a mine town made me remember
another little thing.

When they were about to ignite a shot the engineer in the hoist room
would give three equal blasts on the whistle as a warning to anyone in
the area. My Mom said when she was a kid they had a dog that would
hear those three blasts and climb, dive or dig under whatever was close
at the time! LOL

Rick

 

[rake60]

I talked with a man today who lives in the town where the site of the
Cascade Coal and Coke mine property is.
He gave me names of the current owners of the property.

If all goes well I'll have some pictures of the remains of some old steam power soon.

Rick

 

[rake60]

I may be developing an obsession with this local mine history thing, but the
draw of the steam power that made it work has me hooked.

Here's a picture very few will ever see in person.

The old timbers that are holding up the world from caving in on that tunnel are
at least 75 years old. Comman sense kicks in to keep you alive when you are
that close, but there's a little voice whispering, a few more steps wouldn't hurt. :-\

The red stains on the walls just above the rail tracks show how deep the sulphur laden
mine drainage had flooded that tunnel at some point.
The same stains on the rock at the roof show where drainage has seeped through the
rock from above. It's an unstable area to say the least.

I for one wish it weren't!
The remains of a steam driven pump are said to lay about 500 feet below that tunnel.
That level has most likely been flooded for decades and there may be nothing left of
the pump.

I'd just like to know WHO prints these!

Rick

 

[lathe nut]

Rake60, thanks for the look in one of those, that must have some place to work, there sure is no hard rock in SW Louisiana, that is neat to see, thanks, Cando

 

[ChooChooMike]

Neat pic Rake! That pic says, "Come and explore me !!" Of course common sense like that sign says to stay away.

I too have a growing interest in old mining history - especially the old steam powered stuff. I caught the dreaded steam disease 5-6 years ago I spent some time in CO last fall and the year before exploring old mining towns and surface works (Leadville, Cripple Creek/Victor, St. Elmo, Durango/Silveron/Ouray areas and more) just whet my appetite for more ! I'm a steam locomotive nut too ;D

Mike

 

[doubleboost]

Hi
Interesting looking passageway that.
I am a active member of a mine rescue team in England as well as a very keen mine explorer
we only cover metal mines (disused coal mines are nasty places usually full of gas ).
I have literally hundreds of photos of disused and abandond mines ,this is just a small taste

If you want to see more just ask
Regards
John

 

[rake60]

If you want to see more just ask
Regards
John

I'm Asking!

My family members, including my father, were all Mine Construction Workers.
Their usual job was the construction of vertical shafts.
Any time there was a catastrophic event, they were the ones
who were sent in to repair the damage to make the mine safe
and workable again. With my recent renewed interest in this subject
has him talking about a few of those repair jobs.
Some of them sound pretty nasty.
We've had a few great success stories right here in Pennsylvania.
Sadly we're had more that didn't end as well.

The inherent dangers of steam are long gone from the mines, but the
every now and then the earth will decide it has been violated enough and
strikes back.
It usually wins...

Rick

 

[ChooChooMike]

If you want to see more just ask
Regards
John

YES, MORE MORE MORE !!

Start a separate thread just for these kind of pix !! :big:

 

[doubleboost]

These pictures are of a flurospar mine in northern england this mine recently closed pictures were taken after the vandals had destroyed the place ,
It is possible to enter the incline but the workings are now flooded
Try this link
http://www.mineexplorer.org.uk/mines.htm

[

John

 

[rake60]

That is GREAT stuff!

In the USA there would be an army of attorneys standing by to see if someone
stubbed a toe on an old iron rail.
They would go after the company that cast that rail to exact proper compensation
for pain, suffering and mental anguish for their injured client.

That greed keeps those places off limits here.

Rick