by Nick Puzak
of Penn State University

Very little remains of the Maher No. 3 Mine, which was located on the Conemaugh River upstream from Bairdstown, Derry Twp., Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The railroad coal loading tipple was located at the southwest end of Blairsville, in what is now land periodically inundated with water from the Army Corps of Engineer's Conemaugh River Lake. According to a June 2005 article in the Blairsville Dispatch, the concrete foundation of the tipple still exists. This is near the former location of the Columbia Plate Glass plant, and the current location of the southwestern Little League Baseball field. The mine entrance itself was located in the cliff directly across the Conemaugh River from this location, and was connected to the tipple by a steel bridge across the river. A slight trace remains of the road from Bairdstown to the mine entrance, in addition to a few remnants of foundations and coal waste.

by Nick Puzak
of Penn State University

The Maher No. 3 Mine was a drift mine opened into the Pittsburg Seam of coal in 1900. The mine was located upstream from Bairdstown on a cliff along the Conemaugh River. The tipple was on the opposite side of the river, south of Blairsville in Indiana County. Near the tipple was the large facility of the Columbia Plate Glass Company, which operated on the site from 1901 until the 1930s. The Bituminous Map Repository lists this company as the owner of a mine in Derry Township, Westmoreland County, with a map date of April 1901 - soon after the Maher No. 3 Mine opened. It is therefore a possibility that the glass company had some control or ownership of the Maher Coal Company. The tipple and mine were connected by an incline across the river, a "fine steel structure" according to the Inspector of the Second Bituminous District. No length is given in the Report of the Department of Mines, but inspection of aerial photography yields a possible total span of 300 to 400 feet. (Note: There was also a swinging pedestrian bridge across the river at or near this point, connecting the glass plant with "Coal Hill," that was destroyed during the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936.)

The mine itself was a drift mine, and was considered non-gaseous by the Inspector of the district. It initially had a 30 square foot furnace for ventilation, providing around 12,000 cubic feet of air per minute to the workings. In 1903, a new 35 square foot furnace was erected, which increased the airflow to around 20,000 cubic feet of air per minute. Through its history, the Inspector noted that it was in either "good" or "fairly good" condition. This indicates that the management maintained adequate ventilation to the faces of work as well as drainage-ways for water. The best year of production for the mine was 1906. In that year, the Inspector stated that the mine was nearly exhausted, but the 39 men and 4 mules working inside extracted over 71,000 tons of coal from the hillside. That equates to an average of almost 6 tons per man per day, all which was mined using picks and shovels. In its eight years of existence, the mine produced 395,475 tons of coal. The following table shows various figures for the Maher No. 3 Mine:

The tipple for Maher No. 3 Mine was at the end of the Blairsville Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This branch diverged from the Indiana Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad at a point at the southeast end of Blairsville, behind the present-day Specialty Bar facility. It was constructed in 1892 for a distance of 1.23 miles, following the north bank of the Conemaugh River. The ca.1892 end of the branch was likely the tipple for the Maher No. 2 Mine, which was at about that location (based on the Pennsylvania Railroad's CT1000 booklet) and began production in that year. In ca.1899, the Blairsville Branch was lengthened another 0.27 miles, for a total length of 1.5 miles. This extension was likely because of the 1900 opening of the Maher No. 3 Mine and the 1901 opening of the Columbia Plate Glass plant.

The Maher No. 3 Mine was worked out and abandoned October 8, 1907. However, the Thomas Maher Mine opened up that month (working nineteen days in that first month), with about the same number of men and mules. It is a possibility that this mine and the Maher No. 3 Mine were either the same facility or at least were in close proximity, perhaps with the Thomas Maher Mine using the former's incline and tipple. The Thomas Maher Mine was run by the man of the same name, who was also the superintendent for the Maher No. 3 Mine. Both mines were stretched across the Conemaugh River at Blairsville, with the mine in Westmoreland County and the tipple in Indiana County. Finally, the 1911 Report of the Department of Mines states that the output of the Thomas Maher Mine was used at a glass plant, which coincides with the possibility that the Maher Coal Company was controlled by the Columbia Plate Glass Company (discussed previously). It is possible, as well, that this information is lost to history.

Also note that the location of the Maher No. 3 Mine is mistakenly shown as the "Burrell No. 3 Mine" on a 1904 Geographical Atlas. The description of the Maher No. 3 Mine in the Report of the Department of Mines matches perfectly this location, and there is no evidence of the Burrell Coal Company having a Burrell No. 3 Mine.

Reference Sources:
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
1900 Report of the Bureau of Mines of the Department of Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, 1900.  Harrisburg, PA:  Bureau of Mines.

Himler, Jeff.
2005  Diverse Tintown Relived By Former Residents. published in The Dispatch.  Blairsville, PA: The Blairsville Dispatch, 24 June 2005.
Available online (2006): http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_347034.html
2006  St. Patrick's Day Flood Left Its Mark on the Area. published in The Dispatch.  Blairsville, PA: The Blairsville Dispatch, 17 Mar. 2006.
Available online (2006): http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_434135.html

Netzlof, Robert.
2002  Corporate Succession of the Pennsylvania Railroad: Development of Fixed Physical Property. 10 Aug. 2002.   http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Corphist/prr3.html

Pennsylvania Railroad
1900  List of Stations and Sidings [CT1000].  p.155.  Philadelphia, PA: The Pennsylvania Railroad

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