About thirty of the original miners houses survived in ca.1993.  Most were bult on two plans.  The more comon houses were two family houses, and two stories in height, with entrances on either sides of the facade sheltered only by small stoops.  The houses were clad in french-lap asbestos shingle siding, and are topped by side-gable roofs.  One-story original shed sections extend across the rear;  behind these, were small porches.  Many of the proches have been enclosed.  The other type of houses are of a similiar plan, but are somewhat larger, and have half-hipped porches across the front and larger rear porches.

The widening of PA Rt. 119 to four lanes in ca.2004 has destroyed most of the remaining evidence of the Indiana Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad bed that served the Graceton mines and coke works.  The roadbed of the Indiana Electric Railway Hoodlebug Line through Graceton is now part of the Indiana County Parks Hoodlebug bike trail.

In a 1977 interview with Ernest B. Fricke, Ralph McCreary related that his parents, Harry and Zett McCreary, were married in 1894, and at first, lived in Indiana. But "... father was superintendent of the mine and coke plant at Graceton and was installing some kind of machinery for washing and cleaning coal -- something new in the country, really. And the only way he could get to Graceton from Indiana, a nine-mile trip, was to take a train early in the morning and come back on the train late in the evening.  "So, because (my father) wanted to be closer to his work he suggested to mother that they move down and live in a company house. She was a good sport and went along with it. I was born in a house at Graceton. In 1898, we moved back to Indiana." 

When the Graceton Mine & Coke Works was purchased by Youngstown Steel Company, the small coal company patch town of Graceton was filling up rapidly. One resident adds: "many Slovaks, Poles, Croatians and Hungarians also migrated here." "Led" Oswalt recalls, there were 67 double houses here at one time, and a few single houses. And there were nine shanties near the coke ovens -- just one or two rooms. Mostly bachelors lived there."

The town of Graceton, like other mining towns of the period, was self-contained. "We had a company store," Oswalt says, "and a pool hall with two bowling alleys in it; the building stood 'till 1938. After a time, the first company store proved small, and they built a new one. After that, the old one was used as a dance hall and basketball court.  "We had a Justice of the Peace in town who kept a shoe repair shop; he also had a place in his shop to hold the hearings. Most people shopped at the company store, but a man named Asper kept a dry goods store below town. And another man, a Mr. Pearlstein, had a meat market and grocery store. He was shot and killed when someone-robbed his store, and after that Mike and Ray Rich took over the business."

For recreation, "Led" explains, "Most people just stayed in Graceton. Youngstown Steel built a community park for the kids, with swings and slides and a Maypole. On Sunday, the band always practiced there, and people came and sat on the grass to listen. There was always baseball on holidays, and races, and greased pig contests. On Halloween, the men of Graceton would dress up and go to Indiana on the train for the parade. Fair week was a big time too. Special trains ran every 15 minutes between here and Indiana, and they were always filled.

"Graceton was a pretty town. There was a fence around the company property, and it was always kept whitewashed. It really looked nice. And although the families in Graceton were always allowed to keep cows and chickens, the front row of houses was restricted -- I guess the company officials thought that made the town look tidier!"

("History of Coke" by Eileen Mountjoy Cooper,  formerly of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Published on-line in the series "Coal Dust: The Early Mining Industry of Indiana County" by the Special Collections & Archives Indiana University Library, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA.)

(History and description of the Graceton Mines, adapted with additional data  from "Indiana County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites, 1993,"  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.)

"The pay at the Graceton mine was good, and Joseph (as he now preferred to spell his name) was quickly able to pay back the money he owed his brother for his passage. By carefully watching what he spent, he managed also to save enough money to send for Maria a mere 15 months or so after his own arrival. Barely 20 years old, she took a train in late September or early October 1908 and travelled to Bremen, where she boarded the S.S. Friedrich der Grosse, leaving behind her father and three sisters; two of her sisters, Josephine and Margaret, would follow her several years later, but it was the last time she ever saw her father. It is not known if her sister, Gizela, was still alive at that time, but her memory was preserved later by Josephine (Lelak) Herpak, who named her only daughter, Gizela (Herpak) Prusak, in her sister's memory."

There is a somewhat painful story associated with the arrival of Maria Lelak in the United States. Maria arrived in New York on October 14, 1909, and she lived with Joseph for several months at Sandor's and Elizabeth's house. During the months that he worked in the mines he managed to save enough for Maria's passage to America, and he also accumulated enough money to get married and set up house as soon as she arrived. Under mysterious circumstances, all the money was stolen from its hiding place, thus forcing them to postpone their marriage and prolonging their stay at Sandor's and Elizabeth's house. Joseph and Maria moved to Barnesboro in the early months of 1909 where they were married on March 31, 1909. Maria was already five months pregnant with a child, on her wedding day."

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