In 1932, black rock miner Orry King came out to Washington State from
his native West Virginia to see his old military buddy S.B. Clinard. Tramping the hills around one of the logging camps, Orry espied a black band of color in a hillside. Recognizing the band as an outcropping of coal, Orry
immediately headed back to camp to tell S.B the good news. S.B. organized the O.K. Coal Company and put Orry to work as General
Manager and Mine Supervisor. Orry wrote home immediately for his best
mining buddies to come to work. One of those buddies was Olen McDonald, who spent a summer in a West Virginia coal mine before developing claustrophobia and never went back down again.
Olen's love of coal and his claustrophobia made him ideal for the above ground coal operation. He built a coal bunker on the outskirts of Montesano along the former OPLC's spur to its log dump on the Chehelis River. The business grew every year as O.K Coal quickly was unchallenged as a heating fuel for local industry and homes. The 1930's and early 40's were booming years but by the end of WW@ the emerging threat of oil-burning furnaces affected O. McDonald Coal's profitability.
O. McDonald's operation was similar to many small town coal yards. The coal car is spotted next to the coal bunker, above the steel and concrete hopper located under the rails. Up high, atop the bunker, geared pulleys turn, driving chain conveyors, which hoist the coal in small buckets. Near the top of the planed housed conveyor, the chunks of coal pass through a screen before plunging down a chute, guided to the appropriate section in the bunker. The bunker, limited by its conveyor, handles only two grades of coal, stove coal and nut, for home furnaces.
In front of the trestle, at the open ends of the bins, a portable gasoline conveyor is sputtering and clanking, feeding a continuous supply of coal nuggets to a pair of men wielding bags. Most coal is hauled in bags, 125 pounds to the bag, 16 bags to the ton. The bags themselves are old grain and potato sacks. The bags are loaded onto the trucks, the trucks loaded and the bags secured. The driver and helper climb into the cab and go to the scales next to the office. A clerk records the weight, after which the coal is watered down (to reduce dust) and the truck heads off to make deliveries. Ten tons a day (two loads) per truck is a good day's business.
In the autumn months, the annual coal cycle begins as the hopper cars begin to arrive at the rate of a car of two every week. The pace picks up through the winter months, until an average of a car a day, six days a week, is being spotted on the siding.
When not delivering coal, the men are kept busy on ice runs, picking up five tons of ice, in 400 pound blocks, per truck load. By the early 1950's, the mass shift of consumers to oil heating was in full force. The hours of sweat and truckloads devoted to coal delivery taper off, gradually at first and then drastically. The coal bunker was seeing less coal delivered and the conveyors were rusting, and bunkers slowly deteriorating.
Reference
Ian Wilson, The W.H.Thomson Coal Co, Railroad Model Craftsman, November 2000
No comments:
Post a Comment