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Coal Miners Memorial Beatty Mines & Coke Works, Beatty, Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

Photos of the Beatty Mines, Village of Beatty, Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

Coal Mines of Westmoreland Co., PA INDEX
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Beatty No. 1 Mine,
Beatty No. 2 Mine &
Beatty Coke Works,

Mount Pleasant Coke Company,
Beatty,
Unity Township,
Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

A Tribute to the Coal Miners that mined the Bituminous Coal seams of Beatty Mines, Beatty, Unity Township,Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Compiled & Edited by
Raymond A. Washlaski

Raymond A. Washlaski, Historian, Editor,
Ryan P. Washlaski, Technical Editor,

Updated Sept. 18, 2008

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Beatty No. 1 Mine & Coke Works (ca.1906-1919),
Located on the Beatty Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, at Beatty Street west of Monastery Road, Beatty, Unity Twp., Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
[Beatty Coke works contained 182 bee-hive coke ovens, ca.1910.]
[Beatty No. 1 Mine was idle in 1919]
Owners: (ca.1906-1919), Mount Pleasant Coke Company, Greensburg, PA

Beatty No. 2 Mine & Coke Works (ca.1915-1940's),
Location: Beatty Street west of Monastery Road, Beatty, Unity Twp., Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
Owners: (ca.1915-1930's), Mount Pleasant Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
              (ca.1930's-1940's), Unity Coal Company, Greensburg, PA

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A portion of the U.S.G.S. Latrobe, PA 15 min. quad map, ca.1902, showing the location of the future Beatty Mine & Coke Works and the route that the Beatty Branch of the Pennsylvania that served the Beatty Mine & Coke Works.
(Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.C.)

Beatty Mines & Patch Beatty Coke Works
The Beatty Coke Works at Beatty Mines, showing the lake built for the coke works, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, Unity Branch, Beatty spur line that served the Beatty Mines and the Beatty Patch to the left.
(Photo courtesy of the Latrobe Area Historical Society Archives, Latrobe, PA.)
Beatty Mines & Patch Beatty Patch
Beatty Patch in the upper left and the lake that provided water for the Beatty coke works at Beatty Mines. The Beatty No. 1 Mine was to the right, along the railroad spur.
(Photo courtesy of the Latrobe Area Historical Society Archives, Latrobe, PA).

DESCRIPTION:
Only about twenty company-built houses survive in the company patch town of Beatty .  They are standard two-story wood-frame double houses with two brick chimneys, gable roofs, and stone foundations.  As with many of the region's coal company-built double houses, a number of those at Beatty have been converted into single-family dwellings and the original clapboard siding has been covered with various sidings.  No mine structures from the Beatty No. 1 Mine and Beatty No. 2 Mine survive. The bee-hive coke ovens of the Beatty Coke Works have also been demolished.

A few remains of the coke works can be seen along the hill side in the valley below Beatty Patch.   The Pennsylvania Railroad branch from the old Pennsylvania Railroad Mainline, that served the Beatty Mines and Coke Works can be traced from Monastery Road to the coke works at Beatty.  The lake that provided water for the coke works has been partly filled in and is now, ca.2000,  the site of the Unity Township Building.  Remains of the mine dump can still be seen below the Unity Township Park on the site of the Beatty Mine.  Remains of several air shafts that could have served the Beatty Mines are located in the valley down stream from the Beatty Mine location.

Several caved-in mine entries are also located in the creek valley down stream from the location of the Beatty Mine, these were probably from the several different country bank mines that were in the valley, and not associated with the Beatty Mines.

HISTORY:
The Mount Pleasant Coke Company of Greensburg began operations about ca.1901 when it opened the Boyer Mine and Coke Works in Mount Pleasant Township. Five years later this company opened a second mine and coke works in Unity Township.  Called the Beatty Mine & Coke Works, this drift entry mine and coke works was served by the Beatty Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad from a spur off the old Pennsylvania Mainline line between Dorothy and St. Vincent Shaft.

From the 1906 Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, we have the following information on the Beatty Mines:
Mount Pleasant Coke Company:  Beatty Mine:  This is a new mine, and has not yet come under the law.  The three main entries have been conected for the purpose of ventilation.  The one intended for th emain haulage road has been arched from the entrance with a stone and brick back to where the rock is of sufficient strength to support itself.  A blacksmith shop has been built, 300 coke ovens, railroad sidings, stock barn and several tenant houses, and everything necessary for an up-to-date plant is now in course of construction.

W. A. Wilson of Greensburg was the general superintendent of the company and Clarence Deal served as mine superintendent.  By ca.1910 Beatty miners produced over 105,000 tons of coal and the coke workers produced 35,000 tons of coke. The Beatty operation employed 167 miners and coke workers.

By 1915 the company hierarchy consisted of J.W. Kuhns of Greensburg, president.  W.A. Wilson, general superintendent, and James P. Murtha, mine superintendent at Beatty Mines.  (Kuhns was also president of the Mount Pleasant By-Products Coal Company, that operated Saint Vincent's Shaft Mine.) Some of the coal produced at the St. Vincent's Shaft Mine, located about 1 mile east of Beatty, was probably sent to the coke works at Beatty No. 1 Mine.

That year, ca.1915, Mount Pleasant Coke Company began building a new Mine at Beatty.  Called Beatty No. 2 Mine, it had a slope entry and opened in 1916.

Both Beatty No. 1 and No. 2 Mines used mules and a rope haulage system to haul coal from the mines to the tipple. The mine utilized four water tube boilers and two pumps.  The Beatty mines employed 160 miners and coke workers.  The company sent only coke to market.  Beatty No. 1 Mine was closed in ca.1919; however, Beatty No. 2 Mine remained in operation throughout the 1920's  and into the 1940's.

Beatty No. 2 Mine produced 116,791 tons of coal & produced 76,533 tons of coke, in 182 bee-hive coke ovens, in 1919.  The mine operated 196 days with 136 employees, there was 1 non-fatal accident in 1919.

In 1920 the Beatty No. 2 Mine produced 168,868 tons of coal and 110,616 tons of coke, in 182 bee-hive coke ovens, it worked 274 days, with 160 employees, and has 2 non-fatal accidents.  The mine produced over 68,000 tons of coal in 1931.  In the late 1930's Mount Pleasant Coke was acquired by the Unity Coal Company of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Beatty Mine No. 2 employed 131 miners producing 350 tons of coal daily in 1942.  By the 1940's the coal was shipped to market by truck.

(History and description of Beatty Mines & Coke Works, with additional data and pictures adapted from "Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites, 1994,"  America's Industrial Heitage Project, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, U.S. Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Accident at Beatty No. 2 Mine proves Fatal
Martin Moody, the sixteen year old boy of near Beatty, who had his leg caught in the bullwheel at the plant of the Mount Pleasant Coke Company, Monday afternoon, and who was taken to the Westmoreland Hospital at Greensburg, died in that institution, yesterday, he having failed to rally from the shock incident to the crushing and mangling of his leg.  He was a son of John Moody, of near Beatty.  The remains were brought to the father's home today, and funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon, the interment being made in St. Vincent cemetery.  He leaves, besides his parents, five brothers and two sisters.

Other papers are requested to make note of the death.  In the hope that the news may find its way to William Moody, a nineteen year old brother who left last Friday, in company with John McColl, to seek work with the former's uncle, a mine foreman at Boswell, Somerset county.  The boys have not been heard from since, and nothing is known as to their whereabouts.
(Latrobe Bulletin, May 24, 1911 & The Archives of the Latrobe Area historical Society, Latrobe, PA)

Railroad Map
A New Map of the Connellsville Coke Region and Adjacent Fields, South Western Pennsylvania. ca.1910, by J. B. Hogg, Civil & Mining Engr., of Uniontown
(Map courtesy of the Latrobe Area Historical Society, Archives Collections.)

Coke Ovens Dwellers at Beattie:
During the Depression many transients found shelter in the abandoned coke works which dotted the landscape.  These coke ovens were made of Brick, about 14 feet in diameter and about 7feet high in the center.  These were used to bake coal into coke for the steel industry.  The abandoned coke ovens at Beattie were a favorite among the transients. The coke oven residents could walk over to Saint Vincent Monastery were the monks operated a soup kitchen that was a life saver for the indigent.  The nearby Beattie Hotel had a side bar so the coke oven dwellers could come in for drinks without disturbing the regular customers.  Some coke oven dwellers fixed them up for a permanent home.  In one case, after the World War I bonus was paid, neighbors were surprised to see a new Pierce-Arrow auto parked in front of a coke-oven home at Beatty. (Murphy,1999:5)

References:
Murphy, Hugh J.
1999 Growing Up During the Great Depression.  published in "Around Latrobe", Vol. VI, No.2, Summer 1999.  Ligonier, PA: Around Latrobe

"Coal Miners Memorial, Beatty Mine & Coke Works,
Beatty, Unity Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania"
Photos of Beatty Mine,
Village of Beatty, Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
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