At the foot of the L-shaped street is the former H.C. Frick Coke Company Store, the Union Supply Company.  It is a one-story wood-frame building, measuring 60 ft.x 60 ft., and has clapboard sliding and a flat roof with a stepped gable on its main (north) facade;  the storefront contains multi-light windows behind large storefront windows. A recently installed porch with a metal roof extends across much of the main facade.  The interior of the building features a pressed-tin ceiling; the building rests on a stone and concrete foundation. The former Union Supply Company Store now (ca.1994) operates as the H & R Tool and Die Company and is in good condition.

On the south side of Sewickley Creek two roads run parallel to PA Rt. 981 and three roads are perpendicular to PA Rt. 981.  Twelve houses in this section of Calumet were originally built as single family dwellings.  These are one-story wood-frame buildings with gable roofs and single brick chimneys located just off the gable ridge.  The gable ridges are parallel to the main facades.  Many of these small miners' cottages have been altered with rear additions and porch enclosures. They rest on stone foundations. Twelve other company-built dwellings in this south section of Calumet are double houses identical to those described above.

Nothing remains of the Calumet Mine or Calumet Coke Works at Calumet, except parts of the slate dump.  The mine and coke works were located along Sewickley Creek, south of the abandoned railroad spur, on the northern outskirts of the town.  Tailings from the mine and coke ash from the coke works extended along the south side of Sewickley Creek, most of which has been reclaimed.

There was a tavern in the lowest level, family quarters and a parlor on the ground level (family legend tells that it was a favorite out-of-the-way palce for some powerful politicians who took their girlfriends there! ) The top floor had rooms for Frick people and sales reps who came to visit the mines.
(Photo courtesy of Kenneth H. Eichner and Mt. Pleasant Township Bicentennial Committee)

By the early 1890's the Calumet Coke Works was inlarged and contained 225 Bee-hive coke ovens.  Typical annual production at the Calumet Mine in the 1890's was about 100,000 tons of coal;  the Calumet Coke Works produced about 60,000 tons of coke each year.  In 1889, after one year of production at the Calumet Mine & Coke Works, by the Calumet Coke Company, the H.C.Frick Coke Company acquired a one-half interest in the Calumet Coke Company.

During the bitter coal miners strike of 1894, a dozen deputy sheriffs , that were being paid by the H.C. Frick Coke Company at Calmuet, while off duty, went swimming in the reservoir there. Two of them were captured by several hundred angry strikers.  The others escaped.

By ca.1899 H.C. Frick Coke Company acquired control of the entire Calumet Coke Company.  Under the auspices of H.C. Frick Coke Company production at Calumet Mine rose through the early 1900's, despite the fact that the coal company continued to mine the coal by using hand labor.  H.C. Frick's theory was, why spend money on mining equipment, when you had willing men with weak minds and strong backs, that worked cheap, to do the mining work for you.

The condition of Calumet Mine in ca.1910, from the mine inspectors reports, was:  Calumet Mine - Ventilation is good, except in a small section of the pillar workings to the left of the main haulage road.  Drainage fair. Improvements made to Calumet Mine in 1910 were: 230 Wolfe safety lamps and equipment were renewed.  Work was started on safety latches at landing for the shaft cage.

From the 1910's through the early 1920's the Calumet Mine was consistently one of the H.C. Frick Coke Company's better producers. By 1914 the H.C. Frick Coke Company employed 260 men and boys at the Calumet Mine, who produced over 225,000 tons of coal and 150,000 tons of coke.

In ca.1919 Calumet Mine produced 189,557 tons of coal and 69,589 tons of coke, there were 260 coke ovens with 127 in operation.  The mine had 270 employees, and 1 fatal accident in 1919.  In 1920 Calumet Mine produced 157,816 tons of coal and 85,641 tons of coke, there were 260 bee-hive coke ovens with 150 in operation, and employed 241 men and boys.  The mine had 3 non-fatal accidents in 1920.

As late as ca.1930 the H.C. Frick Coke Company was still using eleven mules or horses for hauling coal in the Calumet Mine, in addition to a single steam locomotive, and two mine locomotives operated by compressed air.  Production in ca.1930 amounted to a mere 9,000 tons of coal.  The Calumet Coke Works had been abandoned by this time.  

By ca.1932 the H. C. Frick Coke Company closed and abandoned the Calumet Mine and sent a number of the miners to the Standard Shaft Mine near Mount Pleasant, and layed off the rest of the coal miners to fend for themselves, with no compensation or means of support.

A Mr. Kromer owned the "Kromer Hotel" in Calumet during the coalmining days.

(History and description of the Calumet 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.)

For a photo essay and the story of
one of the last operating coke works
in Westmoreland County and Western Pennsylvania. -
The Calumet Coke Works
click on photo Link at Left or go to
Progress Ending a Way of Life,
The Calumet Coke Works,

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