Day 8 - Atlas Coal Mines

Our second to last stop of the day (due to closing hours) was the Atlas Coal Mines. This was a mine that was in operation until not that many years ago. The boys got to get in a coal cart and feel what it felt like to be a coal miner going to work in the morning.


We then did a tour of the coal mine building. Unfortunately, due to the late hour that we arrived we could not tour all the buildings.


This is a conveyor belt that the coal travels up on. The men stand at the top and pick out debris, before it is sent out onto the next level, where it sorts it into large and fine coal.

This is where the coal comes in from the outside. It comes down the conveyor belt and drops onto the mesh. The smaller pieces fall down through, and they are then sent through an even finer mesh, so they can sort it into various sizes.

The guys would come to this building to get their outfit. It is hung up high above and they have a little metal tag that they put by their hook, when they have gone to the mines. If they forget to put away their metal tag the compan would send out a search party to find the 'missing miner' in the mine.

The first time this happened they would lose a weeks pay. The second time they would be fired.

This is the shower. See all the taps on the ceiling.



We did, however, get to see the wash house and the one where the batteries were stored. What was very cool was in the battery house there were Thomas Edison Storage Batteries. These are batteries that Thomas Edison worked so hard to create. He was trying to create an efficient electric car, but it was not efficient enough. The batteries ended up being used for other purposes, including these storage batteries which were used to recharge their lightbulbs that the miners used in the coal mines.

One of the Storage Batteries

The advertised Wild Fire Coal and told people it burned hotter and brighter than other coal. They painted on orange lead paint as it came through the machines and entered the coal wagon! This did help sell the coal faster. Other companies would put children's toys in the coal sacks as an incentive to get people to buy their products.

This was funny. The man told us that this room was haunted and that people had seen 'things' in their developed pictures. The told how he had an encounter of his own. One day he was in the room talking and one of the wire baskets hanging up above his head had fallen and noone was there to touch it. Austin then pipes up and says, "I don't believe in ghosts. Maybe the wire holding the basket just broke and that made the basket fall."

The man said Austin might be right, but it was fun to tell the ghost story. The boys are laughing here as he says this. Good for Austin for speaking up about what he believes.