Chestnut Ridge, PA

Royal Coal & Coke Works - Chestnut Ridge, Pennsylvania

Workers of the W. J. Rainey Company's Royal coal mine and coke works lived at Chestnut Ridge, Pa. Thus this is one of the coal company towns where the village name doesn't match the mine name. W.J. Rainey Coke Company constructed Royal in 1908-1909, probably concurrently with nearby Allison. A 1907 state mine report states, "This is a new shaft mine with no development other than a heading connecting the two shafts." There were originally plans for over 700 rectangular coke ovens (pioneered by this company at Mt. Braddock) to be constructed, although I'm not certain if that quantity was ever achieved. This Pittsburgh seam mine regularly produced six figures of tonnage through the 1910s, '20s, and 30s. By 1930, use of the coke ovens had ceased and coal was shipped to market, although I have to wonder if it travelled all the way to the customer by train or was loaded into barges at Rainey's Clyde river tipple on the nearby Monongahela. W.J. Rainey, Inc. closed the Royal mine in 1941.