Waterman No. 2 Mine (ca.1913 ?-1954),
Located on the Yellow Creek Branch of the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway, on an unnamed Run, Tide, Center Twp., Indiana Co., PA
[Waterman No. 2 Mine was closed and permanently abandoned on April 12, 1954.]
Owners: (ca.1913-1952), Brush Creek Mining Company, Indiana, PA
                                      [A subsidiary of Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co.]

The typical double family house in Waterman is similar to other houses built for the coal company at nearby Tide and Coy.  Built on a random rubble stone foundation, the houses are clad in weatherboard siding and are topped by side-gable slate or single roofs.  Single brick chimneys, shared by both units, are located at the central roof ridge.  Shed porches extend nearly across the front, on most houses, shed porches at the rear have been enclosed for additional liviing space.  Most of the tightly packed houses have had their original gray weatherboard walls covered with synthetic siding, but their original plans are still evident.

A double-family miners house in Waterman ca.1993.
(Photo by Richard Quin, courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.)

The coal company store  & Post Office once stood on the lower side of the village, they no longer exist.  The area has been replaced by a nondescript concrete block building.  The Waterman No. 1 Mine complex itself has been dismantled and strip mining operations have been conducted in the area.

Waterman No. 1 Mine was a drift mine opened in the "B" coal seam, in the Brush Creek Coal Field , in ca.1913.  The Hyde-Murphy Company, which has constructed the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company housing at Ernest and Iselin patches, began construction of weatherboarded frame houses for the miners at Waterman.  Eventually, sixty double family houses along the Homer City road were built by ca.1930, plus a series of management houses on the hillside southeast of the main patch row.  The miner's residences were all constructed by the Hyde-Murphy Company of Ridgeway, Pennsylvania.

Waterman was also provided with a company store  building and a post office.  By ca.1914 Waterman had both passenger and freight service on the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad's Tearing Run Branch.

A unique aspect of the Brush Creek Coal Field was that due to the proximity of the several mine openings, the miners' houses in the several coal patch towns were located as to be available for any of the mines, with the exception of Luciusboro.

In 1914, only a year after the Waterman No. 1 Mine opened, 65,000 tons of coal were produced by seventy-five men and boys.  The Waterman Mines were electrified and ventilation was provided by a Stine fan.

Waterman No. 2 Mine was located north of Waterman, near the coal patch town of Tide, which was build by the Tide Coal Mining Company, another subsidiary of Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co.

From Deborah L. Mumau we have this bit of information on living in Tide. Samuel Garland Pizer worked in the Waterman Mines as did most of his sons. Harry  Pizer, Deborah L. Mumau's uncle was killed at Waterman No.2 Mine. Her mother tells stories of growing up in the Tide coal patch and how they played in the creek and my grandmother always knew, because of the sulfer water, and they would come home with orange feet. She told me she used to see her brother Harry every morning because they used to have to walk to school and he would holler at her from the tipple. Harry was only 23 when he died from his injuries in the Waterman No. 2 Mine.

The Waterman No. 2 Mine buildings and electrical substation, located near Tide.
(Photo courtesy of Deborah L. Mumau, whose grandparents lived in Tide.)

Underground mining ceased at the Waterman Mines in ca.,1952, though strip-mining was conducted for many years in the area.

The coal company owned miners houses in Waterman were sold by the coal company in ca.1947, and are now all privately owned.

(History of the Waterman Mines, Waterman & Tide, Center Twp., Indiana Co., PA, adapted with additional data from "Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company, The First One Hundred Years," by Eileen Mountjoy Cooper,  formerly of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA.  Published by Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company, 1982.)

(History and description of the Waterman 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.)

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