The mine shaft was 312 feet deep. It was finished in September 1903.  Keystone Shaft Mine was located west of Darragh.  Darragh was the center of the Keystone Coal & Coke Company's operations in the Little Sewickley Creek Valley. The Keystone Shaft Mine was situated on the Pittsburgh Coal Seam, which averaged 82inches - thick in this area.  Equipment at the mine included a hoist house to lift the mine shaft cages, a boiler house to produce steam for the hoisting mechanism, and a tipple to sort, weigh, and transport the coal.  The Hempfield Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad served  Keystone Shaft Mine and the coal patch town of Keystone (Keystone Shaft).

John Maguire started as a water boy in Keystone Shaft Mine, at 75 cents a day when the mine was first opened, ca.1903.  Altho he worked other places in the meantime, he was working at Keystone Shaft Mine when it closed in May of 1938.

Thompson and his family lived in the log house at Boeric's greenhouse.
There being no school house in Keystone Shaft, the children from the Keystone Shaft area when to Mars Hill School.
Two of the Thompson 's children appear on the picture of Mars Hill School for the year 1905-06, when Mildred Sittman (Vanatt) was the teacher.

From the Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, 1905.
Keystone Coal & Coke Company
Keystone Shaft.  -  In good condition in regard to ventilation, drainage and safety.

When the mine first started, the bottom cager wanted to show his girl friend, later his wife, what it was like in the mine. Part way down the shaft the hoisting engineer stopped the cage and sent word down that it was broken. After leaving them "Sweat it out" for a while he lowered the cage to the bottom.

By 1910 Keystone Shaft Mine employed 450 men and boys and produced nearly 270,000 tons of coal.  Most of the coal was shipped by rail to market.  Keystone Coal & Coke Company did not construct any coke ovens at Keystone Shaft Mine.

Improvements made in 1914 to Keystone Shaft Mine, of Keystone Coal & Coke Company, included:  Building 135 stoppings and 3 overcasts of brick. Installation of electirc power to supersede compressed air; 9 mining machines; 14 pumps; and 5 electric locomotives. Built a power station room inside the mine, 30 by 14 by 15 feet of brick and concrete, with all other necessary equipment.  Also drilled a bore hole from the surface to the power room, through which the power is conveyed.

In the late 1910's Keystone Coal & Coke Company initiated a series of improvements to its thirty-five mining operations, fifteen of which were in the Greensburg district.  These improvements include the installation of bathhouses and laundries for the miners. By the fall of 1919 the company noted that it had completed the construction of bathhouses and laundries at four of its mines near Greensburg, including Keystone Shaft Mine.  A company official proclaimed that these facilities, built to improve cleanliness and health to arrest the spreading influenza epidemic of 1918, resulted in improved health of the workers and a decrease in an estimated "forty per cent of the work that used to occupy the time of the miners' wife at home."  The company also noted that the laundry at Keystone Shaft was "Self-supporting" because a "Small nominal fee was charged each family to cover the cost of soap, bluing, and general maintenance."  H.T. McKnight of Darragh served as superintendent of the Keystone Shaft Mine when these improvements were carried out.

The Keystone Coal & Coke Company gave prizes each year to the family that had the best garden and also to the family that had the tideiest yards.

Keystone, like most of the mining towns, had street lights in the blocks before the public roads.  The houses in the blocks were using kerosene for lighting purposes.  The coal company made its own electricity at the mine power house.  The only houses that had electricity was the "Bosses Row."  About 1922 the West Penn Power Company took over the job of supplying Keystone Shaft Mine and the patch houses with electricity.  When the coal company made its own electricity, the generators were shut down every weekday from noon to 1 PM for the purpose of having them checked and oiled.  The generators were not oiled on Sundays.

The greatest production at Keystone Shaft Mine occurred in the 1920's.  In 1920 the mine produced 399,882 tons of coal, it worked 231 days, and had 427 employees. In 1920 there was 1 fatal and 1 non-fatal accident.  By 1925 the mine employed 347 men and boys, producing over 462,000 tons of coal.  By 1930 the work force had been reduced to 220 men who mined 2,500 tons of coal a day, and more than 100,000 tons of coal per year.  Keystone Coal & Coke Company closed the Keystone Shaft Mine by the mid 1930's and withdrew from Darragh in 1938.

At the present time (ca.1962) the town gets its water from a well on the old coal company farm.  It is pumped up into tanks and distributed by water lines to the houses and fire plugs.  They also have a standby connection with the Herminie Water District in case of trouble or water shortage.

The photo at left is of the second Honor roll, honoring the men that went to war from Keystone Shaft.  The first Honor Roll was made of wood.  The boy in the photo is George Lutsovich, Jr., and the girl is Doris Bytheway.
(Photo courtesy of Helen Lutsovich and John J. Wilson's "The History of Sewickley Township", 1962)

(History of Keystone Shaft Mine and Keystone Shaft adapted from "History of Sewickley Township"  1962, by John J. Wilson.)

Charles Leach and Karl Licht are definately the same person. (he was also known as Carl Light) but it is really Karl Licht. My great grandfather. He is buried in Winegrove cemetary in Hermanie. I do know a little more about some other miners.

I started geneology as a tribute to Karl, he was the bravest man I have ever heard about. I wish I could have known him. The story goes (and has been confirmed by those who were there that day) that one morning he woke up and told his wife (my great grandma) that he could not go to work because he would be killed. He stayed home 2 days and then finally said (and these words have gone down in our family "pack my lunch and keep the boys home Fannie, what is to be will be" (his step son William Gensch and his biological son Karl Licht worked with him). The boys stayed home, Karl went to work and was killed. After she buried him, my great grandma said "I will lose no more boys to the mine", moved to Donora and the rest of them went into the steel mill. William though stayed in the mine, (he was a grown man and married.)

From Joan Hassen Dillon we have this story of the Coal & Iron Police at Keystone Shaft.
My uncle, John Sredoja, now deceased, told me that they lived in a town called Keystone for a while (his father traveled to different mines in the area trying to get enough work to feed his large family).   Uncle John said that "over the hill" from their row of houses were barracks where the Coal & Iron Police lived and they were told by their parents not to go near there. One day Uncle John, aged about 6 or 7, threw a stone at one of the Coal & Iron Police as they were on his porch questioning his father and holding him in a headlock. They were frghtening dressed in black and armed and uncle John thought he would be shot for throwing the stones.

POWDER EXPLOSION KILLS 3, HURTS 18
Miners' Christmas Merry-Making Has a Tragic Ending.
DANCER'S CLOTHES ARE SET AFLAME
Many Saved From Death by Blankets - Cause Unknown, But Vengeance is Hinted.

Greensburg, Penn., Dec. 25, 1910.
Three persons were killed in an explosion, eight are in danger of death from their injuries and ten more are in the West Moreland Hospital tonight, either as victims of sombody's vengeance or in penalty of somebody's carelessness.

While miners were holding a Christmas celebration at Keystone shaft near here last night twenty-five pounds of blasting powder was set off under the stairway of the house in which they had gathered.

The accident occurred at the home of Michael Wilding, while he was entertaining a party of about twenty-five men and women, some of whom had come from Youngstown, O., to seek work in the mines here. It is believed one of the men in the party, while a dance was in progress, thru a cigartette butt carelesly under the stairway. Twenty-five pounds of black mining powder is said to have been stored there in an open can. Flames from the explosion shot through the room and the smoke blinded the dancers as they tried to escape.

The three who were fatally burned and died soon after removal to the hospital are:
Josephine Fagetta, 24, married, of Youngstown, O.
Michael Wilding, 22, the host, of Keystone Shaft.
Jack Hemlinger, 30, single, of Keystone Shaft.

The clothing of nearly all the dancers took fire from the explosion, and, although the room was burned and blackened, the house was not seriously damaged. Men in adjoining houses rushed in with blankets and wrapped them about the burning women, saving many from death.

Superintendent H. B. Bovard of the mine arranged for a special train which brought the injured to this city.

Early rumors that a bomb had been exploded under the stairway by striking miners cannot be verified.

(from "The Boston Journal," Boston, MA, Dec. 26, 1910.)

(Article courtesy of Tim Taugher.)

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