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JACKSON FIELD
This is a generally exhausted coalfield in Jackson and Vinton Counties. After a modest beginning circa 1800 - 1820, the coalfield enjoyed a heyday from roughly 1875 to 1925, although minor surface mines still pop up
every now and then. Most coal was produced from the No. 2 Quakerstown coal seam, but all of the seams numbered 1 through 7 have been mined to one degree or another. All three types of coal mining - shaft, slope, and drift - have
taken place in the Jackson Coalfield. And, although there is next to no coal mining anymore, there is still the annual Wellston Coal Festival.
The Comet Coal Co. opened the Comet No. 1 mine in 1881.
An underground coal car in front of the restored rail depot in Wellston.
The former store of the Wellston Coal Company
Coal company houses in Wellston probably built by the Fluhart Coal Mining Co.
More coal camp houses that housed the miners of Fluhart Coal Mining Co. Shaft No. 1.
I believe that this was the stack from the mine furnace of Wellston Coal Co. No. 1. Before the widespread use of huge fans to ventilate
underground coal mines a furnace would move air through the mine by heating it.
For illustration purposes, here is a ventilating furnace at a coal mine of unknown
location.
Former location of the Milton Coal Company's No. 1 shaft in Wellston. The same company had a No. 2 shaft nearby, too.
Probably an original coal miner's house near Jonestown, Ohio. The structure still sports board and batten siding.
The names on these headstones at the Coalton cemetery are fine English, Scottish, and Irish names, suggesting that Eastern and Southern
European immigration to the Jackson Coalfield was minimal.
The company store in Coalton, Ohio as it looked in 1880.
The company store in Coalton, Ohio as it looked in 2016.
Remaining coal company houses in Coalton.
The only remaining gob pile I saw in the Jackson area. It was possibly from the Chapman Coal Company's Grace Mine.
The former Dayton, Toledo, & Ironton Railroad.
These coke ovens in Vinton County are believed to be the only ones of their type
remaining in the world. These "Belgium Coke Ovens" were constructed of a brick that was designed and manufactured in Belgium and shipped
to the Jackson Coalfield of Ohio. Their operation was to support the Vinton Iron Furnace, but the high sulfer coal of the area did
not produce a satisfactory coke, and the ovens were abandoned.
From "History of Industry in Jackson County" via JCOGS publications
Oct. 2004 image by author
Public domain image by HAER [Historical American Engineering Record]
2017 image by author
2017 image by author
2017 image by author
Circa 1938 American Mining Congress image
2017 image by author
2016 image by author
Oct. 2004 image by author
Image from a great book titled "History of the Coal-Mining
Industry in Ohio" by Douglas L. Crowell
2016 image by author
2016 image by author
2016 image by author
2016 image by author
Image courtesy of J.Markiel @ www.oldindustry.org