McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
The ‘Coal Trail’ devised by Judge Executive and others holds interest for the museum and its part in McLean County. Like the Duncan Center in Greenville, the museum will house some artifacts of mining. Already in the upcoming display on “Memorabilia of Old Businesses in McLean County” we have the steam “whistle and oiler” from one of the Blade and Rector mines of Island. Coal mining had a bearing on McLean County history so it is fitting that McLean County is a part of the ‘Coal Trail.’
According to Rothert,s History of Muhlenberg County written in 1913 Alney McLean, for whom our county was named, or his son William, accidentally discovered that the “black rock” on their farm near Green River would burn. More than thirty years before the founding of McLean County, around 1820, William D. McLean “opened what was known as the McLean drift bank below Paradise. He was one of the first men to report the existence of coal in Western Kentucky. He recognized coal as “a desirable fuel but with wood plentiful and more convenient his discovery was at that time regarded as a matter of little consequence.”
McLean found blacksmiths who had been using charcoal, acceptable to the use of coal, first selling to them. But by 1830 he was mining and shipping coal down the Green River and on the Ohio to Owensboro and Evansville, Indiana. The McLeans operated the mine for twenty years.
Through the years, other mines sprang up along or near the Green River. The Williams Shaft, Vanlandingham Ledge, Pain’s Mine, Kincheloe’s Bluff Bank, Rothrock Mine and Throckmorton Mine and the Mud River mine on the Mud River were some of Muhlenberg’s first commercial mines.
Records in the Muhlenberg County courthouse show the following: “Articles of Incorporation, Mud River Mining Company at Mud River, Ky; To commence mining August 1, 1900. Purpose; to mine coal, fire clay and other minerals and to sell same. Highest indebtedness to be $250,00. Stockholders; John Hill Eakin, Edgar James, Claude Christopher, E. S. Randle, Alex G. Hunter and Thomas F. Hart, all of Nashville, Tennessee.” This corporation fell on hard times after the death of J. H. Eakin and it was sold at the courthouse door in Nashville, Tennessee. Later, E. S. Randle came to Island Kentucky and opened the E. S. Randle mine.
Virginia Davis in her history of Island wrote, “ The turn of the century saw the beginning of a new industry. The sale of coal and mineral rights was increasing and larger and more modern mines were being opened and coal shipped by rail. E. H. Flanagan operated the Slope Mines, with the exception of a few non-working periods, from 1901 to 1935. Other mines opened were the Big 4, Memphis Coal Company, Pittsburg and Kentucky Coal Company, West Virginia Coal Company, E. M.T. owned by Edwards, McHargue and Thompson which was sold in 1929 to Clarence S. Rose becoming the Island Coal and Mining Company.”
According to an article written by Addie Bell Freels, for the 1976 bicentennial issue of the McLean County News the “boom era” of coal mining in Island came around 1912. Miners from Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia flocked to Island raising its population to its highest with the number of people near 1,100.
Having grown up in Island, the daughter of a small coal mine owner, and experiencing some of the things that come with the industry, being on the “Coal Trail” holds great interest for me personally. Also, it is something that should make every person proud of the heritage of “Coal Mining in McLean County.”