Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine & Coke Works (ca.1883-1931),
Located 1/2 mile north of PA Rt. 819, on State Street, Standard Shaft, Mt. Pleasant Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
Owners: (ca.1883-1931) H.C. Frick Coke Company, Scottdale, PA

Standard Shaft No. 3 Mine (ca.1901-1931),
about 1 mile north of PA Rt. 819, Standard Shaft, Mt. Pleasant Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
Owners: (ca.1901-1931) H.C. Frick Coke Company, Scottdale, PA

Of the several mine buildings, and the headframe and tipple at Standard Shaft, only the Machine Shop and Generator / Lamp House survive.  The Machine Shop, built ca.1886, is a one-story common-bond red-brick building and measures approximately 30 feet x 12 feet. It has a gable roof covered with asphalt and is supported by riveted steel roof trusses.  The building features arched window openings with brick keystones;  the windows have been infilled with brick.  It also has a large sliding metal door, which is not contemporary with the building's use as a machine shop, at its gable end, and two brick chimneys,  the building rests ona stone foundation.

The Generator / Lamp House is a one-story common-bond red-brick building qith a hipped roof.  It measures approximately 45 feet x 15 feet.  The building was probably built about ca.1910.  A number of alterations have been made including the infilling of the windows with brick and the installation of siding and overhead garge doors.  The building rests on a stone foundation.

Both buildings are currently used for storage, and none of the original machinery is extant.

The Vulcan Iron Works of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, manufacturers of engines used at many late-nineteenth century collieries throughout western Pennsylvania, built the winding engines for the Standard No. 2 Mine.  The headframe was of steel construction, 69 feet in height from the stone foundation to the center of the sheaves. It was 30 feet wide at the base, and 16 feet wide at the top.

The engine house, boiler house, machine shop and blacksmith shop were constructed of brick. All of the buildings and mine structures were designed and built under the supervision of Robert Ramsey, superintendent and chief engineer of the H.C. Frick Coke Company.

By 1888 the miners at the Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine were extracting between 52,000 and 56,000 tons of coal each month.  Adjacent to the mine was a coke works containing 905 bee-hive coke ovens.  There were 406 men working in the mine and 325 men working in the coke yard.  Overall, the Standard Shaft Mine and Coke Works employed 936 men and boys.

Both the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad served the Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine.  Typical annual production from the late 1880's to 1900 was between 400,000 and 550,000 tons of coal, and the large coke works produced from 300,000 to 400,000 tons of coke per year.  No other single H.C. Frick mine and coke works surpassed these production figures.

The H.C. Frick Coke Company widely publicized its Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine and built a huge model of this mine operation which was exhibited at Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

By 1900 the H.C. Frick Coke Company had reassigned a number of its managers to new positions.  O.W. Kennedy was apointed general superintendent in place of Thomas Lynch who remained the company's president. James S. Mack of Mount Pleasant replaced Robert Ramsey as superintendent of the Standard Shaft and Standard Slope Mines.  Robert Ramsey later assumed the position of superintendent of the H.C. Frick Coke Company's United and Calumet Mines.

Standard Shaft No 2 Mine and its coke works continued to employ about 900 men and boys and remained the company's largest single producer of coal and coke.  In 1901 the H.C. Frick Coke Company was again reorganized following its acquisition by the newly formed United States Steel Corporation.

James S. Mack remained as superintendent of the Standard works and oversaw the sinking of a third shaft north of the Standard Shaft Mine.  This third shaft was called Standard Shaft No. 3 Mine.  Standard Shaft No. 3 Mine contained a head frame and hoisting equipment but was used primarily to remove slate and other refuse from the underground workings of the Standard Shaft Mines.

During the 1910's Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine produced its largest amount of coal.  Its greatest production year, 1918, saw nearly 790,000 tons of coal removed from the mine.  Five steam locomotives on the surface and a few dozen mules underground were used in hauling coal.  The H.C. Frick Coke Company still used hand labor to remove the coal.  Standard Shaft had seventeen boilers, totaling 2,915 horsepower, three air compressors, and ten pumps.  Among the mine's features was an underground mule stable illuminated with electric lights.

As with the other H.C. Frick Mines and coke works, production slumped during the brief depression of 1920-1921 an as a result of the bituminous coal miners strike of 1922.  However, by the mid 1920's the mine was again producing large amounts of coal .  In 1925 Standard Shaft produced nearly 630,000 tons of coal and the coke works, with 799 bee-hive coke ovens in operation, produced 253,000 tons of coke.  The mine and coke works employed 558 men.

Standard Shaft produced more than 500,000 tons of coal in 1930, but the following year, ca.1931, the H.C. Frick Coke Company permanently closed the mine and coke works, throwing its miners into the ranks of the unemployed.

In the early 1990's a reclamation project has recovered the coal from the boney dump left by the Standard Shaft No. 2 Mine.  Only one building, the former Machine Shop, dates from the original opening of the mine, what was once among the largest mine and coke works in the United States.

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