Anthracite Glossary

"Everything you wanted to know about Anthracite mining but were afraid to ask"

Here are some Anthracite Industry terms that are not commonly know and I often get questions about them. Many are very old terms and their usage in modern English is limited.

Air Shaft

A passageway used for ventilation of the mine. The shaft would generally connect to the surface. Some shafts were internal and did not connect to the surface. These internal shafts promoted the flow of air and vented harmful gasses.

Anthracite Coal

Refers to "hard coal". This is the type of coal found in the Northeastern and Northcentral parts of PA.

Boilerhouse

The building that housed boilers, furnaces and equipment used to generate steam. Before electricity, most equipment was steam powered.

Blackdamp

Coal miners' term for stale air or lack of oxygen in the air. Carbon Dioxide, exhaled by the miners and Carbon Monoxide from combustion of candles, lamps, etc. contribute to blackdamp. First the person exposed to the blackdamp feels tired and dizzy. If the oxygen levels do not rise the person will black out and eventually die. This is an old, unscientific term.

Breaker

The building that houses the equipment used to seperate the coal from the waste rock and to "break" the coal into marketable sizes.

Colliery

Refers to the entire mining operation. All of the buildings, (Breakers, Fanhouses, Hoisthouses, Powerhouses, Stables, etc), the rail plant, and loading equipment, such as tipples, and conveyers are included

Company Store

The store, ran by the mining company. A miners purchases was deducted from his pay. Often a debt was built up from his purchases, and the mine owners used this debt to keep the miner enslaved at their mine. Hence the line from the song 16 Tons - "I owe my soul to the Company Store."

Culm

The waste product from Anthracite coal mines. It consists of shale, slate and loaw grade coal. Culm banks from the early days on mining has a lot of coal in them, due to the inefficient methods of separation.

Culm Bank

The mountian-like mounds of waste brought up from underground. These piles of waste pose problems in the re-development of the land.

Deep mining

Method of mining where a shaft or slope is dug into the earth to get to the veins of coal. Most of the mines in the upper part of Luzerne County used this method of mining

Dragline

The equipment used to move huge buckets of coal and earth in strip mining operations.

Drainage Tunnel

A tunnel, usually at a slope, used to allow water to flow out of mine workings. Drainage tunnels were constructed as an alternative to pumping out mine workings. The Butler Mine Tunnel in Pittston and the Jeddo Drainage Tunnel near Hazelton are two examples.

Fanhouse

A building, often over or next to an air shaft that housed fans to force air into the mines or to draw out air, all in an effort to promote ventilation.

Headframe

The tower-like structure, above the shaft that holds the various wheels in place to allow the elevator or cage to be lowered and raised in the shaft.

Hoisthouse

The building that housed equipment to lower and raise men, equipment and through the shaft to different levels of the coal mine. Often the headframe of the shaft was built into the hoisthouse.

Mine Fire

The term used to discribe what happens when underground coal burns. Somtimes coal seams catch fire on the surface and the fire spreads underground. Sometimes culm or coal above ground catches fire and it spreads underground. Often steam and smoke will vent from mine openings.

Molly Maguires

Secret Society of Irish miners that conducted terrorism against the mine owners ,who in their eyes had wronged them. The Mollies operated under the context of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a social group. Mine foreman were murdered, trains derailed, fires set, and other mayhem was performed as these Irishmen fought for their rights and dignity. The group was eventually broke up and most of the members were hung by the neck until dead in Jim Thorpe and Pottstown, PA. The Molles operated in the Southern Coal field, mostly in Schuylkill and Carbon Counties. They did not operated in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area.

Patch Town

Refers to the company housing that the miners and their familied lived in. The houses were laid out in little plots or "patches". These patches were very ethnic, the Irish lived in one, the Germans another, the Slovaks in another, and so on. These ethnic groupings gave meaning to the miners and served to create divsion among them, which the mine operators used to their advantage.

Powerhouse

The building that housed equipment that generated electrical power, steam, compressed air and kinetic energy to drive the mining equipment. Older mine operations used stream and kinetic energy. More modern operations generated their own electric power, as this was a time before public utility companies. Generators, turbines and transformers were most lilkely to be found in these buildings.

Pumphouse

The building that housed pumps and other equipment used to remove water from mine workings.

"Robbing the Pillars"

The dangerous practice of removing the pillars of coal that support the roof of a room. Doing so brings the risk of a cave in or subsidence.

Rooms

Large open areas within mines. Such large open areas were made possible by leaving pillars of coal standing to support the roof of the room.

Seam

Same meaning as vein.

Silt

The term used to describe very fine coal or the culm (The waste product from mining). Silt has the consistancy of a fine sand. Often runoff will carry this material with it, clogging drains and just plain making a mess. This is what people complain about when they complain about mining operations.

Shaft

Passage way that extends into the ground vertically and connects the various levels of a mine with the surface.

Stables

Early mining operations used mules and draft horses as motive power to pull the mine cars. The stables provided space to keep theses animals.

Stripping Pit

Refers to the crater left behind from strip mine operatons. Many exist from the time before legislation required mine companies to fill in the workings and reclaim the land. Often stripping pits fill with water. Many persons have died trying to swim in these waters.

Strip Mining

Method of mining where the earth is moved to expose seams or veins of coal. This method is used when the coal is close to the surface.

Subsidence

Term used to describe what happens when a mine void underground caves in or collapses and a hole opens up on the surface.

Tipple

A structure used to load the coal into railroad cars, trucks or barges. It is almost alway elevated above the trasportation infrastructure and is has some method connecting it to the mine. Conveyer belts, chutes, mine railways, or tramways bring the coal from the shaft to the tipple.

Vein

Term used to describe the deposit of coal underground. The same as seam.

Void

Any space left underground. A room, a tunnel, a shaft are all considered a void. This term is used when talking about mine subsidences.

Washhouse

In more modern mines, the building that housed showers and other facilities such as lockers that allowed the miners to clean themselves up before going home for the day.

Washing Pool

Large circular shaped enclosure, most often made from concrete, used to clean the coal. Water, under pressure, was forced into this enclosure, thus removing dirt and other inpurities from the coal.

Whitedamp

Coal miners' term for explosive gas in the mine, be it methane or vapors left over from blasting. This is an old, unscientific term.

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