North of Mammoth, in the Mammoth Westmoreland County Park, six beehive coke ovens had been rebuilt near the site of the Magee Coke Works. An interpretive area, completed by the Westmoreland County Parks system, once surrounded the restored coke ovens. Some company-built houses once stood near here in an unincorporated town known by local residents as Peanut.

Nothing survives from the Magee Coke Works Mine, or the Coke Works.  There are a few remaining traces of the railroad roadbed from the Mammoth branch and the Lycippus spur that can be traced.  A number of years ago the Westmoreland County Parks Dept. rebuilt a few of the Bee-Hive coke ovens from the Magee Coke Works and set up an historic interpretive display with some on the history of the mine.  In ca.2003 because of no maintenace the coke ovens and the display panels needed repairs, but, the county parks dept. destroyed the remaining coke ovens and historic displays because history means nothing to the Westmoreland Parks Dept. Superintendent.

By Bob Stiles TRIBUNE-REVIEW Saturday, April 29, 2006

The signs that describe the historic coke ovens also are in various states of disrepair. A rope with "danger" signs twists in the wind where a once-proud symbol of Western Pennsylvania stood. Time and neglect have led the beehive coke ovens at Mammoth Park in Mt. Pleasant Township to crumble, Westmoreland County officials say. Public access to the ovens also has been denied -- the reason for the barrier and warning signs. "I guess it's year after year of wear and no maintenance," said Westmoreland County Commissioner Tom Balya. "Apparently, they started to crumble, and they deteriorated to the point that the staff felt it was unsafe to have anyone climbing on them."

The ovens, formerly part of an interpretive display dating back at least three decades, are overseen by the county bureau of parks and recreation, which also operates county-affiliated parks. "They just deteriorated over the years, and they were never fired up," said Claude R. Petroy Sr., county director of public works, about a necessary, periodic lighting of the ovens to help preserve them. Wayne Johnson said the ovens weren't fired up for years before he became park maintenance coordinator about three years ago. "I can't say (why they weren't fired up)," he said. "I don't know. I know it's a lot of work. But they probably were there for 25 years without being fired up. Over the years, they just kind of got away from that. "By the time I got there, they were collapsing ... falling in." Firing up the ovens includes putting coal inside and lighting it. That burning helps to maintain the integrity of the bricks and ovens, Johnson said. "That wasn't done, because who's going to fire them up? Who has the personnel, first of all? So they started to deteriorate," Petroy said. No public group came forward to volunteer to do the maintenance work, county officials said.

Raymond A. Washlaski, a local coal historian and an operator of extensive Web sites on coal mining, said the ovens and the plaques in front of them at the park have been deteriorating for some time. He last visited the park a year ago. "They're in bad shape right now," Washlaski said. "They're just falling down from weather and not being taken care of. "Once the weather gets in there, they deteriorate. They've been going downhill for a few years." The ovens were once part of the Magee Coke Works, Washlaski said. They closed in the 1920s or 1930s. "There was a little town then, too, around the ovens," said Washlaski, of Derry Township. "What's left is only a little part of what was there." The ovens aren't far from the Mammoth Shaft Mine, where 107 miners died in 1891.

Johnson said plans are to dismantle the ovens and put up a new tribute, probably this fall. He said photographs will be taken during the disassembly. The bricks are in such bad shape that they probably can't be used, he said. The new display will look like an entrance to an oven, Johnson explained. New plaques will be put in place. "We want to preserve the historical nature of it. I think it's probably going to look a lot better," he said.

(Article courtesy of the Tribune Review, Greensburg, PA.)

This new coke oven display was never built, and the area was bulldozed,  Another example of public officials that don't give a damn about history.

A portion of the Magee Coke Works bee-hive coke ovens that had been restored at the Westmoreland County Mammoth County Park. County park employees and volunteers cleaned and restored a small section of the Magee Coke Works for public display a number of years ago.  The mine wagon shown here is an older high coal wagon, the end dumping door shows in this photo, dumped the coal into the coal bins on the tipple.  The coke ovens were supplied with coal by the coke oven larrys.

Since this picture was taken this bank of bee-hive coke ovens, one of only a few remaining in Westmoreland County were bulldozed in ca.2006, after the county parks superintendent refused to make needed repairs to the fallen-in bee-hive coke ovens, showing again that the old coal miners still get no respect from public officials in Westmoreland County.
(Photo by Ray Washlaski, ca.2003.)

In 2006 the mine wagons have been removed from the park, and have probably been sold or destroyed, and the coke ovens bulldozed over, as the county parks superintendent and county commissioners don't give a damn about our coal mining heritage.  This once proud coal mining memorial to the men that worked and died in the mines in Westmoreland County has been reduced to another blink hillside.
(Photos by Ray Washlaski, ca.2003.)

In 2006 the mine wagons have been removed from the park, and have probably been sold or destroyed, and the coke ovens bulldozed over, as the county parks superintendent and county commissioners don't give a damn about our coal mining heritage.  This once proud coal mining memorial to the men that worked and died in the mines in Westmoreland County has been reduced to another blink hillside.
(Photos by Ray Washlaski, ca.2003.)

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