SNOWSHOE COALFIELD

Clearfield and Centre Counties

Image courtesy of nepaview.com
Ruins of the Kato No. 5 tipple. Kato Coal Company's mine produced coal from circa 1912 until 1938.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Once-bustling Snow Shoe boro. Coal was discovered at Snow Shoe in 1819. Most coal mining around Snow Shoe was in the Lower Kittanning ("B") seam, but the Brookeville seam was also extracted.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Houses built for mining families by Lehigh Valley Coal Company in Snow Shoe.

Mar. 2024 image by author
These Snow Shoe company houses, also built by Lehigh Valley Coal, feature front porches that are probably closer to the original configuration. The one on the right can actually be visited by tourists, and also houses a small museum.

Image courtesy of Sam Baker
Probable wall of the coke ovens wharf at Peale, PA.

Image courtesy of Sam Baker
Former railroad viaduct remains at Peale in Clearfield County

Mar. 2024 image by author
Not much remains of the Peale coal mines other than this slate dump and a few foundations. Clearfield Bituminous Coal Co. (later Corp.) opened the Peale mines and company town in 1883. Like other mining camps in the area, veins of clay were mined alongside veins of coal. On the other side of the county line, in Centre County, were Clearfield Bituminous's Tunnel coal mines.

Mar. 2024 image by author
After the Peale coal mines were closed in the 1910s, most of the company houses were demolished or moved to other locations. Then Peale became a ghost town. This is the only remaining coal company house at Peale, probably now used as a hunter's cabin.

Authory Kyle Crichton wrote in 1960 about a circa 1937 reunion where the former residents of Peale returned to the abandoned town site for a reunion. "... an old resident of Peale organized a reunion. The town had been dead for years, but the response to the reunion call was astonishing. People came from all over the country. They brought their children and grandchildren, eager to show them the place where they had lived so happily. The streets of the old town had been laid out again, with signs bearing the names. When people decided to eat their lunch on the site where their house had once stood, others would cry: 'No, no; you've forgotten. It was over there, on the other side.' They would find the right place, and point proudly to the trees they had once planted on their front lawn. They were now grown to mammoth size. It was hard to believe that human foot had ever trod this virgin land. Some of us climbed the hill to the old station, long since disappeared. It was a wonderful scene, a wonderful occasion. I was there as what they laughingly called the 'last white child born in Peale.' It was probably not accurate, but it was close. We drove out with my brother John and his wife Alice, and at one point near our destination we lost our way. 'Peale!' said an old man in astonishment, when we asked directions. 'There is no Peale . . . but it's right down the road there.' That is the way it is with Peale: it may be gone, but it still exists."

Mar. 2024 image by author
This row of coal company houses at Grassflat, Pa. is of the same style as the singular example remaining at Peale. They may have even been moved to Grassflat from Peale. The coal miners that lived in these houses would have worked in the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation's Moravian Mines.

Mar. 2024 image by author
This Grassflat house retains its original board and batten siding, although the front stoop has been altered and enclosed. Some of the windows appear to be original, too.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Abandoned former Slovak Lutheran church sites forlornly at the edge of Grassflat.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Another style of coal miner's house at Grassflat. Grassflat coal miners worked at Grassflat mines, Cooper No. 1 & 2 mines, Pleasant Hill mine, and Moravian Mines. The Lower Kittanning seam outcropped all around Grassflat, and there were drift portals into all of these mines. Some of these mines dated back to the 1880s. Cooper No. 1 and Pleasant Hill produced coal as late as the 1940s. By that time most or all of the coal was used in New York Central Railroad locomotives.

Mar. 2024 image by author
A management level house in Grassflat possibly constructed by Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation to house an employee of their Pleasant Hill mine.

Mar. 2024 image by author
The Grassflat structure in front of the location of one of Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp's. mine portals (now covered over) was built in 1903 as a hotel. It served in this capacity until 1924, when the Moose Lodge took it over. A century later, it was still serving in this capacity. (Thanks to an anonymous Moose Club member for this info.)

Mar. 2024 image by author
A few remaining company houses at Clarence, Pa. Lehigh Valley Coal Company's No. 14 mine was in the hill behind these houses. Also, their mines no. 2, 4, 10, 12, and 22 were located at Clarence.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Dormition of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church in Clarence. I photograph these Orthodox and Catholic churches and cemeteries because they are one of the last remnants of the eastern and southern European immigration into the coalfields. They are like an echo of history.

Mar. 2024 image by author
Railroad trestle over Moshannon Creek on the Centre - Clearfield County line.