Cochran No. 2 Mine
(Tinsmill No. 2 Mine) (ca.1919-1960),
Located on the Conamaugh Division of the Pennsylvania, Tinsmill spur line, near Salina, Tinsmill, Bell Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
Owners: (ca.1919-1960), Cochran Coal Company, Williamsport, PA
                                      Company Store:  Bituminous Supply Company

DESCRIPTION:
The Cochran No. 1 Mine was located on a high bluff overlooking the Kiskiminetas River near Salina, Bell Township.  Surviving structures, ca.1994, include the Machine Shop and the Fan House.  The Machine Shop is a tall one-story building.  It measures 94 feet x 50 feet and contains common-bond red-brick walls, a gable roof supported by riveted steel Fink trusses, a corbelled brick cornice, arched windows spanned by double brick voussiors, multi-light windows with wood sills, and an ashlar stone foundation.  Alterations include the installation of garage doors and the removal of some of the original windows.  The roof is partially damaged. The front part of the Machine Shop has been converted into a residence ca.1994, while the rear section was abandoned ca.1994.

Adjacent to the Machine Shop ca.1994, was the Fan House, it is a small one-story concrete building; the mine ventilation fan was probably intact ca.1994.

DESCRIPTION:
Tinsmill, Coal Company Patch Town:
The Coal Company Patch Town of Tinsmill, is located south of the town of Salina.  Tinsmill contains three principal streets 1st, 2nd and 3rd. streets lined with coal company built houses, in Bell Township.  Dating from the early 1910's, the residences are both double family houses and single-family houses. The double family houses are two-story wood-frame buildings wiht5 gable roofs and single brick chimneys.  The front entrances are at the gable ends.  These double-family houses rest on stone foundations and originally were clad with clapboard siding.  Many have been altered with asphaltic siding.

The single-family houses are constructed similarly; two stories with a gable roof and brick chimneys.  The main entrance of each single-family houses is also at the gable end.  Many of  the porches of both types od houses have been enclosed and most of the double-family houses have been converted into single-family dwellings.

Located at the corner of Third and Bell Streets ca.1994 is the school and community center, a one-story wood-frame building containing clapboard siding painted white, a gable roof, a brick chimney, and a clay-tile foundation.  The building measures 28 feet x 18 feet.  Many of the windows have been paneled over.

HISTORY:
The Cochran Coal Company of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, owned and operated this drift-entry mine, and built the company coal patch town of Tinsmillsouth of Salina, in Bell Township in 1905.  That year Tinsmill contained twenty-five coal company houses, each with five rooms, and the coal company store.  The town's company store was operated by the Bitumen Supply Company a subsidary of the Cochran Coal Company.

Coal was mined from the 52 inch thick Upper Freeport coal seam, with electric haulage bringing the coal to the pit mouth and tipple for loading in railroad hopper cars.  The Pennsylvania Railroad Conamaugh Division served the mines via a spur line from Salina.  Although Cochran Coal Copany was never one of the county's largest coal producers, its mines remained in operation, with only periodic closings, over fifty years.  Among its most productive years were the early 1910's.

The Cochran Mine produced 137,000 tons of coal and employed 263 miners in ca.1912.  There were four electric mine locomotives, eleven electric mining machines, two Erie City return tubular boilers supplying the power for the mine, and four pumps at the mine in 1914.

By 1930 the Cochran Company employed 160 miners.  Its mines had a daily capacity of 1,100 tons of coal.  In the 1930's the company had it's offices in nearby Salina and was directed by Harry From.

A decade later the mines employed 160 miners, using one electric battery mine locomotive and eight trolley mine locomotives to produce about 84,000 tons of coal.  By the late 1940's Cochran Coal Company was led by G. Erie Blair of Williamsport and the company's Cochran No. 1 Mine employed about 100 miners.

In 1949, using five mining machines and five electric mine locomotives for haulage of coal from the mine, Cochran No. 1 Mine produced about 140,000 tons of coal.

Cochran Coal Company operated the mines through the 1950's before abandoning them in ca.1960.

(History and description of the Cochran Mines, 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.)

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