The Pittsburg-Weir Coalfield, also known as Weir-Pittsburg Coalfield and Cherokee Coalfield, is a coalfield located in Cherokee and Crawford counties in the southeast corner of Kansas.
The first underground shaft mine was built in the region in 1874 near Scammon. Prior to that, there was scattered small-scale drift mining and surface mining of coal, but the construction of the first shaft mine ushered in an era which eventually led to as many as 290 significant mines and numerous other small ("dinky") mines in the two counties. The most active period of mining in the region was 1890-1910, and most of the coal camps were dismantled by the 1930s or 1940s. Mechanized strip mining overtook underground mining in output in 1931, and that combined with competition from eastern coal led to a demise in importance of underground mining in the region. [1]
A major mining disaster took place November 9, 1888 in shaft 2 of the Santa Fe Mining Company mine near Frontenac, Kansas when 150 miners lost their lives in an explosion. [2]
One of the oldest continuously running coal companies in the United States was the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company, founded in Pittsburg, Kansas in 1885. It lasted under that name even after its move to Denver, Colorado when the Kansas mines closed, until September 2007, when Chevron which owned the company, merged it with its Molycorp Inc. coal mining division to form Chevron Mining, thus ending the Pittsburg corporate name. [3]
The name Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company was purchased from Chevron in 2008 and refounded in Midway Kansas. P&M owns mines in Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky and Ohio.
Crawford County is a county located in Southeast Kansas. Its county seat is Girard, and its most populous city is Pittsburg. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 38,972. The county was named in honor of Samuel Crawford, the 3rd governor of Kansas. Pittsburg State University is located in Crawford County.
Frontenac is the second largest city in Crawford County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,382.
Pittsburg is a city in Crawford County, Kansas, United States, located in southeast Kansas near the Missouri state border. It is the most populous city in Crawford County and southeast Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 20,646. It is the home of Pittsburg State University.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Drift mining is either the mining of an ore deposit by underground methods, or the working of coal seams accessed by adits driven into the surface outcrop of the coal bed. A drift mine is an underground mine in which the entry or access is above water level and generally on the slope of a hill, driven horizontally into the ore seam.
Southeast Kansas is a region of the U.S. state of Kansas. It can be roughly defined by Woodson County in the northwest, Bourbon County in the northeast, Cherokee County in the southeast, and Montgomery County in the southwest. Geographically it is dominated by a broad rolling landscape located between the Flint Hills to the west and includes the Ozarks to the southeast. Some notable towns there include Pittsburg, Parsons, Coffeyville, Independence, Chanute, Fort Scott, and Iola.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Kenneth Aldred Spencer was a Kansas coal mine owner who transformed a government surplus factory into the world's biggest ammonium nitrate producer. Money from his and his wife's estate was donated to philanthropies throughout Kansas.
The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit.
The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
Tyldesley Coal Company was a coal mining company formed in 1870 in Tyldesley, on the Manchester Coalfield in the historic county of Lancashire, England that had its origins in Yew Tree Colliery, the location for a mining disaster that killed 25 men and boys in 1858.
Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Lancashire, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the London and North Western Railway's Tyldesley Loopline in about 1874. Speakman's father owned Priestners, Bankfield, and Broadoak collieries in Westleigh. Bedford Colliery remained in the possession of the Speakman family until it was amalgamated with Manchester Collieries in 1929.
The Wigan Coal and Iron Company was formed when collieries on the Lancashire Coalfield owned by John Lancaster were acquired by Lord Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, owner of the Haigh Colliery in 1865. The company owned collieries in Haigh, Aspull, Standish, Westhoughton, Blackrod, Westleigh and St Helens and large furnaces and iron-works near Wigan and the Manton Colliery in Nottinghamshire.
Cleworth Hall Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1874 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Peelwood Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1883 in Shakerley, Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
The Maypole Colliery disaster was a mining accident on 18 August 1908, when an underground explosion occurred at the Maypole Colliery, in Abram, near Wigan, then in the historic county of Lancashire, in North West England. The final death toll was 76.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Hapton Valley Colliery was a coal mine on the edge of Hapton near Burnley in Lancashire, England. Its first shafts were sunk in the early 1850s and it had a life of almost 130 years, surviving to be the last deep mine operating on the Burnley Coalfield.
Barrow Colliery was a coal mine in Worsborough, South Yorkshire, England. It was first dug in 1873, with the first coal being brought to the surface in January 1876. It was the scene of a major incident in 1907 when seven miners died. After 109 years of coaling operations, the mine was closed in May 1985.
Victor-American Fuel Company, also styled as the Victor Fuel Company, was a coal mining company, primarily focused on operations in the US states of Colorado and New Mexico during the first half of the Twentieth Century. Prior to a 1909 reorganization, the business was known as the American Fuel Company.