Denmark Mine
(Manor Valley Mine) (Upper Pit, Slope Entry Mine) (ca.1880's-1923),
Located on the Manor Valley Branch Railroad, later it became the Manor Valley Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Claridge, Penn Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
[(ca.1880's-1889), Denmark Mine was first called Manor Valley Mine.]
Owners: (ca.1880's-1918), Manor Gas Coal Company, Manor, PA
              (ca.1918-1923), Westmoreland Coal Company, Irwin, PA

Denmark Mine
(Manor Valley Mine)  (Lower Pit, Slope Entry Mine) (ca.1880's-1923),
Located on the Manor Valley Branch Railroad, later it became the Manor Valley Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Claridge, Penn Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
[(ca.1880's-1889), Denmark Mine was first called Manor Valley Mine.]
Owners: (ca.1880's-1918), Manor Gas Coal Company, Manor, PA
              (ca.1918-1923), Westmoreland Coal Company, Irwin, PA

(See also: Claridge Mine for more information on the town of Claridge.)

(Data courtesy of "History of Penn Township", by John W. Mochnick)

(Data courtesy of "History of Penn Township", by John W. Mochnick)

(Data from "History of Penn Township", by John W. Mochnick)

The Denmark Mine, both the Lower and Upper pits were slope entry mines, that used a plane or inclined passage down to the coal seam.  The Denmark Mine slope was 4,000 feet long, with a grade or pitch of two degrees.  This was a slope entry mine.

The payroll for November, 1888, indicates that the Denmark Mine employed 140 check miners and a small number of "day diggers."  The miners were paid at the rate of 60 cents a screened ton of coal for general mining, and 74 cents a screened ton of coal for special mining.  The ten "day coal diggers" received $2.75 per day.  There were pay allowances for yardage and turning room work.  During October of 1888, the miners and diggers produced 6,889 tons of coal.

Wages were always relatively low for the difficult and hazardous occupation of the coal miner.  At the outset of coal mining in the Claridge area of Penn Township, mining paid about thirty cents per ton of useable coal mined.  The miner at the Denmark Mine was paid sixty cents per ton of coal in 1888.  It was sometime before there was significant improvement in the length of the working day.  The day labourer at the Denmark Mine worked for $1.50 for a twelve hour day in 1888.  This work day became ten hours in 1900;  in 1912, it became eight hours.

The Denmark Mine report for October, 1888, indicates that the mine shipped a total of 10,398 tons of coal of various grades to twenty-two different outlets.  The unscreened, or so-called run-of-mine coal was sold primarily to the Pennsylvania Railroad for use of their locomotives. The slack coal was distributed to outlets in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.  Besides the run-of-mine and slack, familiar market sizes of locally produced coal included 1 1/4 inch lump, 3/4 inch lump, and nut coal.

Throughout the early 1900's between 120,000 and 230,000 tons of coal were extracted each year from the Denmark Mine.

The Manor Gas Coal Company's Denmark Mine installed six Jeffrey mining machines in 1904.

In 1918 the Manor Gas Coal Company was absorbed in a buy out by the larger Westmoreland Coal Company of Irwin, PA.

In 1919 the Denmark Mine produced 323,487 tons of coal, the mine worked 260 days and employed 310 men and boys, with 2 non-fatal accidents.

In 1925 the daily capacity of the Denmark Mine was 1,500 tons of coal per day.  In 1925 the Denmark Mine produced 383,284 tons of coal, the mine had exhausted 50 acres of its coal reserve, with 416 acres of coal reserve remaining at the end of 1925.

As late as 1930 the Denmark Mine was producing over 135,000 tons of coal, employing 139 miners and colliery workers. However, the Denmark Mine did not survive the great depression years.  The Denmark Mine was closed and abandoned in 1932.

In 1891, J.C. Greer in association with A. P. Cameron, J. M. Goehring and Frank Samuels organized the Claridge Supply Company.  Cameron at the time was superintendent of the Denmark Mine of the Manor Valley Gas Coal Company.  The store conducted a grocery, clothing, hardware, dry goods and general merchandise business.  At the time, no provision was made to retail meat.  However, The Claridge Supply Company opened a meat outlet in upper Claridge in 1912. It was located on the first floor of a two story frame building owned by Manor Gas Coal Company at the western end of their blocks of houses and between the Denmark Mine and Claridge Mine Tipples.  The second floor was used as a general community center.  Eventually, the meat business was moved into the downtown store.  Ownership title became exclusively J. C. Greer and Company and remained such until the death of Greer in 1937.

This store at Claridge was the first of a chain of stores J.C. Greer was to establish at many of the mining patches where Westmoreland Coal Company operated mines.  They came to be commonly known as J. C. Greer Stores.  Aside from the store at Claridge, there were stores at Export, Lowber, Rillton, Hutchinson and McCullough.

(History and description of the Denmark Mine, 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. and the book "History of Penn Township." by John W. Mochnick.)

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