A building that may have served as a coal company store at Jacobs Creek stands near the miners' dwellings.  This ca.1870's two-story wood-frame commercial building measures approximately 58ft. x 20ft..  It is L-shaped in plan and has a one-story addition. The building features decorative wood lintels above the window openings and retains its early storefront consisting of multipane windows, wood paneling, double doors, and transom.  It was recently used as a residence, but is presently abandoned, ca.1994.)

Among the other companies active in Westmoreland County that were acquired upon the formation of the Pittsburgh Coal Company were: the Youghiogheny River Coal Company; the Osborne, Saeger & Company; the Port Royal Coal & Coke Company; the Criterion Coal Company; the Waverly Coal & Coke Company; the Ohio and Pennsylvania Coal Company; and the Eureka Coal Company.

Of the mine properties taken over by the Pittsburgh Coal Company, one of the oldest was the Eureka Mine & Coke Works, located along a narrow hollow near the Youghiogheny River, south of Smithton and approx. 1 mile north of Jacobs Creek.  Fox, Kifer & Aspey Coal Company, of Smithton, Pa., began operations at the Eureka Mine in the 1870's and by ca.1886, its owner, Stoner & Company, led by Charles S. Upstill of Pittsburgh, PA, employed sixty-five coal miners.  Workers and their families lived in the small company town of Eureka and in nearby Smithton and Jacobs Creek. The coal company's local post office was in Jacobs Creek, PA.

In ca.1886 miners at Eureka Mine produced 29,000 tons of coal. No coke was produced that year although the Eureka Mine included eighteen bee-hive coke ovens.  The Eureka Mine was served by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

By ca.1890 William McCune, head of the Waverly Coal & Coke Company, based in West Newton,with coal and coke properties near the Eureka Mine in Smithton, gained a controlling interest in Stoner & Company. At that time the Eureka Mine employed 111 miners and produced 75,000 tons of coal. The Eureke Coke Works were closed ca.1890.

Under the ownership of the Pittsburgh Coal Company in ca.1900, the Eureka Mine produced over 188,000 tons of coal that year, with 130 miners using electric-powered mining machinery to remove the coal.  The overall operation at Eureka Mine employed 173 men.  The company shipped most of the coal from the Eureka Mine from a tipple located on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

From the Mine Inspectors Report of the Eleventh Bituminous District, Pennsylvania for 1906.
Conditions of Mines and Improvements. Mines located on and near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Eureka - Ventilation in slope irregular owing to electric current in the mine being frequently short circuited.  Drainage poor at the slope entry.  In drift opening ventilation and drainage good.

The condition of the Eureka Mine, of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, as noted in the Department of Mines Report for 1909 was: Ventilation good.  Drainage good, except in the slope section.

By ca.1910 the Eureka Mines superintendent was Samuel McKay of Smithton, the mine employed 358 miners, and produced nearly 290,000 tons of coal.  The Eureka Mine had both a slope entry and a drift entry.

In ca.1920 the Eureka Mine produced 155,534 tons of coal, it employed 209 miners, and worked 189 days, with 3 non-fatal accidents, the miners used 47,395 pounds of black powder explosives.

The coke ovens at Eureka Mine Coke Works were constructed of fire brick made by the Yough Clay Manufacturing Company, Gratztown, PA.   The brick company specialized in bricks used in the construction of bee-hive coke ovens.

At the end of the hollow, near the Youghiogheny River the Pittsburgh Coal Company constructed a coal loading tipple over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks.  Coal was conveyed from the mines to the tipple and loaded into railroad hopper cars. By the early 1930's equipment at the Eureka Mine included mechanical screens, picking tables, and loading booms.

In ca.1945 the Pittsburgh Coal Company was merged with Conslidation Coal Company.  This concern, one of the largest in the world, operated the Eureka Mines until ca.1961. The Eureka Mines have been closed and abandoned since ca.1961.  

(History and description of the Eureka 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.)

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