The hoist-house, bath-house, and lamp-house building measures approximately 170 feet x 45 feet, and in ca.1990 served as an electrical repair shop for "Tex's Alternator and Starter Service."  The building contains common-bond red brick walls and riveted steel Fink roof trusses, the tall one-story building features a large hipped roof.  The hipped-roof, in fact, is characteristic of all the mine building at Buffington.  Originally the hoist-house occupied the western half of the building, and the lamp-house and bath-house occupied the other half.  No original motors or hoisting equipment remain in the hoist-house.

The blacksmith shop is also of common-bond red brick construction.  It was converted into a private residence in ca.1980 and measures approximately 35 feet x 25 feet.

North of the former balcksmith shop is the abandoned warehouse building, a one-story common-bond red brick building.  It measures approximately 55 feet x 35 feet and was in poor structural condition ca.1990.

The machine shop is located west of the warehouse building and consists of a small one-story comon-bond red brick building with a hipped roof.

East of the Buffington Mine, between Dunlap Creek and PA Rt. SR 4006, stood two batteries of bee-hive coke ovens.  This area is now covered with the slate dump from the latter years of operation.  There were approximately 300 bee-hive coke ovens in this location.

On the west side of Dunlap Creek a battery of double-block bee-hive coke ovens still stands, ca.1990.  The remains of tall, narrow rectangular coke oven doors may be seen in the northermost one-third of the hand pulled ovens.  The bee-hive coke ovens on the west side of the creek were accessible ca.1990 by a riveted steel-pony Pratt truss bridge crossing Dunlap Creek south of the mine buildings.  The single-span, single-lane bridge is approximately 60 feet in length and was in poor condition ca.1990.

The shafts at the Buffington Mine are 390 feet deep and are located within 500 feet of the property line, so that all the coal tributary to the shaft can be worked by haulage roads with grades in favor of the load.  There are 400 bee-hive coke ovens, all double block.  The power plant consists of six 150 horse power tubular boilers, a compound two-stage air compressor, capacity 1,500 cubic feet of air per minute compressed to 80 pounds pressure, furnished by Nordburg Manufacturing Co., of Milwauke, Wis., one pair of 24 inch by 48 inch first motion hoisting engines furnished by the Vulcan Iron Works, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., two self dumping cages furnished by Kenny & Co., Scoyydale, PA, a 1,000 ton bin erected by the Schultz Bridge and Iron Co., of Pittsburg, PA.

There is also a 100 KW generator and engine for developing power for the larries, electric lighting for the bottom of the shaft and tenement houses, and a Capell fan 16 feet by 10 feet, with a guaranteed capacity of 500,000 cubic feet of air per minute.

The main shaft is 24 feet by 10 feet 6 inches, inside timber and the air shaft 150 feet from it it is 17 feet by 10 feet.  The shafts were sunk by Capt. J. H. Cundy, of the Iron Range ore region of Michigan, and to his credit it may be said that there was not a single accident during the sinking of these shafts.

In the town of Buffington there are 90 double blocks of residences, 20 single, and three of the better class for the miners and their families. 

The Southwest Connellsville Coke Company of Mt. Pleasant, PA bought out the Eureka Fuel Company and acquired the Buffington Mine & Coke Works on July 31, 1901.  H.C. Frick Coke Company acquired the Buffington Mine & Coke Works through a merger and buyout on April 1, 1903.

The Buffington Mine had 1,327 acres of assigned coal.  The coal seam was accessed by a 391 foot deep vertical mine shaft, located next to the hoist house.

In addition to the Buffington Mine, the Eureka Fuel Company built the bee-hive coke oven banks at the Buffington Coke Works.  The coke works contained approximately 425 bee-hive coke ovens.  Two batteries of double-block bee-hive coke ovens were located on the east side of Dunlap Creek and one battery of double-block bee-hive coke ovens was located on the west side of the creek.

The Connellsville & Monongahela Railroad served the Buffington Mine & Coke Works.

The Buffington Coke Works produced over 170,000 tons of coke per year in the early 1900's.  At its peak in the early 1900's and 1910's, the Buffington Mine and coke works employed about 440 miners and coke workers.  nearly 100 of whom were engaged in the production of coke.

By 1928, the Buffington Mine had been consolidated underground with the Footedale Mine and all coal was shipped via. the underground mine tunnels to a rotary mine car dumper located inside the Filbert Mine.  From the Filbert Mine the coal was conveyed via. the Palmer Belt Line underground to the Palmer Coal Docks on the Monongahela River for shipment down river to the Clairton Coke Works.

Palmer Mine & Coal Docks

The Buffington Mine was linked underground, to the Filbert Mine vertical mine shaft, were U.S. Steel installed a rotary mine car dumper in ca.1927 to serve the conveyor system that transported the coal to the coal loading docks at the Palmer Mine; the dumper was removed in 1957 when U.S. Steel ceased operating the rotary mine car dump and the coal loading dock at Palmer on the Monongahela River.

The Palmer Coal Docks, built in 1927 on the Monongahela River, was linked to the development at the Filbert Mine of a large underground rotary mine car dumper.  Daily coal production capability was 5,000 tons of coal in ca.1928. The rotary mine car dumper had a capacity of thirty-two mine cars and served not only the Filbert Mine, but was also linked underground with the mines at Lambert, Footedale, Buffington, and Ralph.  Coal was transported underground from these mines to the rotary mine car dumper, where it was into hoppers and then deposited on a conveyor, and carried by underground conveyor nearly 2.9 miles to the Palmer Coal Docks.  This system remained in operation until June, 1957, when U.S. Steel closed the mines and Palmer Coal Docks.  Nothing remains of the Palmer Coal Docks, reportedly once the largest river coal docks in the United State.

U.S. Steel's Frick Coke Company dismantled the Buffington Coke Works plant in the 1920's.  The Buffington Mine was closed in 1938, the company reopened the Buffington Mine to meet the demand for coal during World War II.  The Buffington Mine was closed and finally abandoned in ca.1946.

From: Lynne Humphries-Russ <lynnehr@simplegiftspress.org>

Subject: [PAFAYETT-L] Coke ovens

Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 19:08:42 -0500

I have so enjoyed the memories of the coke ovens. It has brought a part

of my childhood back to me. As a child visiting my Grandparents in

Buffington, the smell of the coke ovens and the slag dump was very

strong. Today, there is a just a whisper of that smell in Buffington but

it's still there, if only for someone who knew it from long ago. On the

New Salem Road from Uniontown, there were coke ovens that I loved seeing

each time we drove past them. When I was little, they were in operation

but only for a short time, I think. There is a marvelous description of

what it was like in the mines and the coke ovens in a book called

Patchwork Voices. The book was available at the Coal and Coke Heritage

Museum at Penn State, the last I knew.

I, too, used to see those amazing rivers of molten coke dumped on the

slag mountain near the old Pittsburgh Airport. Then they stopped, along

with the steel industry in Pittsburgh. I watched as Century III Mall

was built at the foot of that mountain and that mountain slowly was cut

down. There are roads on it now and buildings, too. If you go to visit

the Mall, there are several of the huge buckets and other machinery used

to dump the slag in the landscaped areas. There's even a huge piece of

slag, if I remember correctly. The reclamation has been amazing.

When I was first married in 1976, my husband and I lived in Oakland, the

university section of Pittsburgh for all the out-of-towners on this

list. I remember vividly sitting in the living room of the apartment,

looking up at the sky and realizing that the sky was an unnatural shade

of lime green. Within 12 years, my husband and I had moved to the

Baltimore area because there was such a dearth of jobs in the Pittsburgh

area due to the demise of the steel industry.

While I love this area, I miss Pittsburgh and Uniontown and my home. My

family still lives in Bethel Park, Uniontown, Beallsville and, yes, in

Buffington, too. And my extended family is prolific in the area. I miss

it. Maybe someday I'll get to move back.

Happy Easter to All!

Lynne

From: "Janet Szymanski" <jan1333@cox.net>

Subject: Re: [PAFAYETT-L] Coke ovens

Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 19:39:27 -0500

References: <3CA7A509.592C307B@simplegiftspress.org>

Hi Lynne, My father was born in Buffington in 1915 in the house at the top

right hand corner of the patch with the big evergreen tree in the yard. I

have a picture of the original Greek Catholic Church and Buffington Mine on

my website. My Hungarian family immigrated from Szikszo Hungary to

Buffington to work in the mines. One of them, Joseph Brecz, was killed in

the mine sometime between Nov 1904 and Dec 1913. I have a lot of family

buried in the Greek Catholic Cemetery.

or
Go to Top of Page