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| Luciusboro No. 1 Mine
(ca.1913-1930's), Located on the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway, Tearing Run Branch, Luciusboro, Center Twp., Indiana Co., PA [Located on the U.S.G.S. 7 1/2 min. Indiana /Brush Valley, PA quad map.] [UTM: E. 17 E.659000 - N.4486150] Owners: (ca.1913-1930's), Brush Creek Mining Company, Indiana, PA [A subsidiary of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company, Indiana, PA.] |
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Brush Creek Coal Field showing the Luciusboro Mines, Waterman
Mines, Coy Mines, and Snyder Mines of the Brush Creek Coal Mining Company,
on the Tearing Run Branch of the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh
Railway.
(Map courtesy of Eileen Mountjoy Cooper, formerly of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, copied from Cooper's book "Rochester &: Pittsburgh Coal Company: The First Hundred Years." ca.1982) |
| DESCRIPTION: Luciusboro, a coal company patch town, in eastern Center Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, has forty-odd small single family houses arranged on three parallel streets on a hillside east of the Brush Valley - Coral Road. The typical coal company built house in Luciusboro is of hollow glazed-tile block construction, two stories in height, resting on a coursed ashlar stone foundation and topped by a front-gable shingle roof. The houses have double-hung sash windows with 2/2 lights, a brick chimney flue at te ridge, a one bay shed porch over the front doorway, and a smaller shed porch, partially enclosed in weatherboards, an original feature, at the rear. Twenty to twenty-four such houses survived in the coal patch town as of ca.1993. Many of the houses have been altered with new windows, doors, new roofs and enclosed porches. |
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| A single-family coal company built hollow-tile block house
in Luciusboro, Center Twp. (Photo by Richard Quin. Courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, U.S. Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) |
| HISTORY: The Brush Creek Mining Company, of Indiana, PA, a subsidiary of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company, began operations on the Henry Fritz, McFeaters, and Duncan farms in eastern Center Township in August of 1913. The Luciusboro No. 1 Mine was opened in ca.1913. The mine and coal patch town of Luciusboro was named after Lucius Waterman Robinson, then president of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company. During the first year of production, the Luciusboro No. 1 Mine produced over 71,000 tons of coal. In ca.1914, seventy-one men and boys were employed at the mine. The Brush Creek Coal Mining Company built a 24 foot x 36 foot electrical substation at the Snyder No. 1 Mine in ca.1913, at the terminal of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company's electrical transmission line from the Lucerne Mines central power house. The total cost of the substation and its equipment exceeded $12,000. Sometime shortly after the opening of the Luciusboro No. 1 Mine, an electrical transmission line was run to the Coy Mines from the electrical substation at the Snyder Mine, to supply electrical power to the mines at Coy and the town. Later electrical feeder lines were run to the Waterman Mines and the Luciusboro Mines. The Lucerne Mines Central Power Plant supplied electrical power to all subsequent Brush Creek Coal Field Mines. Electric powered mining equipment was used in the Luciusboro Mines from the beginning of operations. By 1929 annual production from the Luciusboro Mine had increased to 125,000 tons of coal. However, the Luciusboro Mines were soon exhausted, and were shut down and abandoned in ca.1930. The coal company planned coal patch town of Lusiusboro which housed the miners from the Luciusboro Mines eventualy had fifty-one single family houses and twenty-six double family houses, a community hall, doctor;s office, company store and infirmary. Today, approximately half of the glazed-tile houses remain in the former coal patch town and all all privately owned. (History and description of Luciusboro Mines, adapted 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.) |
| "Coal Miners
Memorial, Luciusboro Mines Luciusboro, Center Twp., Indiana County, Pennsylvania" |
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Mines of Indiana County, PA Contact: Ray Washlaski, Editor Copyright 2005, All rights reserved, by Raymond A. Washlaski, Ryan P. Washlaski & The 20th Century Society of Western Pennsylvania. Web site Design by "Mercers, an Undertakers" Web Design Company |
