Mining up history!

[firedigger]

I am so excited about these mining tags, and here is why. A few weeks ago I started looking for ghost towns by looking at late 1800's maps in my area. I found this mining town that made national news in 1907 because of an explosion that entombed 75 men according to the New York Times. When I actually got to the land, unfortunately most of the town had been surfaced mined, so I overlaid current satellite images with a 1932 map of the area and found that the back row of homes and a church had been spared by the surface mining, so today I scouted and my calculations were correct! I found a row of root cellars! I dug these two mining tags out of the first one. I cant help but wonder if these belonged at one time to the families that were effected by this horrific tragedy that led to the demise of a once thriving mining community. Can't wait to go and "mine" more history out of those cellars.

 

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[bclark]

Nice finds. I bet that there is a bunch of stuff out there. What did they mine? Coal?

 

[lookindown]

What were the tags used for?

 

[firedigger]

bclark; yes, they were coal miners

lookindown; these tags were the accountability system. You would hang your tag on the "In" board with the corresponding number and then remove it when you came out. At any given time you were supposed to be able to look at the "In" board and tell who and how many miners were in the shaft.

 

[lookindown]

bclark; yes, they were coal miners

lookindown; these tags were the accountability system. You would hang your tag on the "In" board with the corresponding number and then remove it when you came out. At any given time you were supposed to be able to look at the "In" board and tell who and how many miners were in the shaft.

Thanks for the info.

 

[DirtDiggler]

Nice tags. Those tags were also used as a pay identification. Before there were belts to carry the coal out, carts would be pulled out or pushed out by mules or the workers. The miners wasn't paid by the hour but by the carts they loaded. The tags were nailed on cart to identify who loaded them so they could get paid for it.

 

[Roadquest]

Interesting thread. When I was a kid, my dad was a coal miner in Haysi. He was working in one of the mines.
When there was a cave in. Crushed one of his legs, and cut his face. But, he came out of it, alive. He was lucky.
We used to go around the coal mines, and find blasting caps. There are some old caves (not coal mines) in Haysi
that have carvings on the walls in them.

 

[Charlene]

Rich in history, awesome.

 

[firedigger]

thanks dirtdiggler for the info on the carts

roadquest; my grandfather and uncle were all miners in this area. My grandfather used to tell me the story of a collapse that dropped a rock onto him and his coworker, the rock was the size of a car. My grandfather's back was broken and his buddy killed, they lay there next to each other until they dug them out. Mining was and is a very hard way of life.

 

[lumbercamp]

Mining tags are a unique find. The more interesting ones I have found are hand made ones the miners cut out of copper and would scratch numbers and letters on. I don't clean tags. I leave them dirty as found.