MORRIS MINE (GILMORE, PA)
This slate dump remains from the Gilmore Coal Mining Company's Morris Mine in Cecil Township, Washington County.
I really did not see any other structures remaining from the mine. The Morris Mine was in an approximately five and a half thick section of Pittsburgh seam coal.
On closer inspection these company houses at the Morris Mine patch are single family homes, and not the more common duplex patch houses.
Other company houses at the Morris Mine coal patch town, also known as Gilmore. PA Route 50 is in the lower left of the photo.
A slope portal into the Morris Mine.
Alan Hinton contributed the following black and white pictures. He wrote, "Please see attached photos of the Morris Mine and adjacent Gilmore patch town in Cecil Township PA from 1922 (when it opened). My great grandfather, John Lose, along with his family traveled from Windber PA to build the patch town.
The images are from the photo album of my grandmother, Iva Mae Lose Hinton. Feel free to use them on your website."
Jan. 2010 image by author
Jan. 2010 image by author
Jan. 2010 image by author
Image courtesy of Ron Franko
The Gilmore patch when it was new. Could the dirt road be modern day Route 50?
More patch houses.
More detailed picture of the nice, large company housing.
A rare picture of the Gilmore company store. I wonder where stores No. 1, 2, and 3 were?
A meat wagon in the Gilmore patch, with the company housing going up in the background.
The new slope portal.
This is supposed to be the Morris Mine tipple. I wondered why that it would feature a head frame for a shaft when there was a slope portal near by. Local
historian Pam Nixon answers, "Morris was a slope mine, and men and supplies went in on the slope. Coal cars were brought to the bottom under the tipple and winched to the top and dumped into the breaker house [tipple]. Coal sorted from slate in the breaker and then loaded through chutes into the railroad coal hoppers underneath. Westland operated the same way as did Henderson and Montour 4. My grandfather was the 'winding engineer' at Hendersonville or in other words he kept the winding winch running."
Gilmore Coal Mining Company executives.
Image courtesy of Max Hensley