[PRCo] Castle Shannon slum???

Fred Schneider fwschneider at comcast.net
Fri May 9 14:54:33 EDT 2014 

I wonder what you pay for mine subsidence insurance up the hill from the mine tipple in Castle Shannon?   I notice the street that goes up from the tipple is called Rolling Rock Road today … probably has more to do with what goes on underground than teenage beer parties.   :<)   Wonder if those tunnels wound up under the home that John Swindler's parents owned?????

I remember early conversations with Ed Lybarger about the coal industry.   Don't know when … John Swindler brought him to my house to meet me about 1974.   Hard to believe we've been friends for 40 years now.   But at any rate, one of the things Ed pointed out to me very early was how the Pittsburgh seam [of coal] was mined out first in Allegheny County, then pretty much in Fayette County by World War I, and then mining moved down to West [by God] Virginia because it was cheaper to get it out of the Pittsburgh seam down there than dig deeper to the next seam of coal in Pennsylvania.   For one thing, going down deeper involves pumping a lot of water.  

To paraphrase this … coal isn't necessarily all gone in Allegheny, Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, but the Pittsburgh seam, which is closest to the surface is mined out.  You do not waste money digging deeper until you get all the cheaper coal elsewhere.   

I remember growing up in Penn Township (Penn Hills Municipality today) in the 1940s.   We lived on Crescent Hills Drive, since renamed Crescent Hills Road.   The development was begun in the 1930s.  Around 1947 or 1948 when the houses 125, 127, 129    (I do not remember exactly which one) were being built, the builder was having problems with his construction sliding into a mine.   They poured a lot of concrete into a hole in the ground to stabilize that house.   I also remember walking with my dad up the hillside  that lay between Crescent Hills and Frankstown Road and finding a blocked up mine entrance … the rails came out of a hole in the ground and the entrance was blocked with a sheet of corrugated steel.  But when I walked up on the hill above the entrance … alone when my folks didn't know where I was wandering … I found another opening.   The roof had caved into the old mine.   There was simply a hole in the mountainside where some unsuspecting fool could fall in.   Today that entire area is filled with houses on a new road called Springdale Drive.   But even between the time I found the old mine and the construction of Springdale Drive in the 1960s and 1970s,  … in the late 1940s that entire area was strip mined of what remained.   

If you were to start at the Pennsylvania Railroad, nee Allegheny Valley RR, where Sandy Creek Road comes out to the Allegheny River today (you can look it up on google maps), there used to be a mine branch of the PRR or AVRR that paralleled Sandy Creek Road and Coal Hollow Road to serve those mines.   There is one old postcard floating around that shows a Verona streetcar passing over the railroad at Sandy Creek (White Oak P.O.).   This map shows it in 1895 of there abouts.   There were mines in all the hollows.

     http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?view=entry;cc=maps;entryid=x-20090121-hopkins-0032

And that is just one tiny chunk of Allegheny County that was once mined.   


On May 9, 2014, at 10:21 AM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Yes, I was going to mention that the area would be hidden from Library Road
> by the railroad.
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 8:31 AM, Edward H. Lybarger <trams2 at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> And behind the P&WV embankment.
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounces at mailman.dementix.org [mailto:
>> pittsburgh-railways-bounces at mailman.dementix.org] On Behalf Of Herb
>> Brannon
>> Sent: Friday, May 09, 2014 8:01 AM
>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] Castle Shannon slum???
>> 
>> Ahh, they sat on what is now Castleview Road on the west side of the
>> trolley line.
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 7:45 AM, D Brashear <shadow at dementix.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> There are 37 buildings next to a mine plainly visible here:
>>> 
>>> http://data.cei.psu.edu/pennpilot/era1940/allegheny_1938/allegheny_193
>>> 8_photos_jpg_800/allegheny_051739_aps7264.jpg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 9:45 PM, Dwight Long <dwightlong at verizon.net>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Fred
>>>> 
>>>> P&WV did indeed at one time own the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company.
>>>> However, even though the coal outfit was separately incorporated,
>>>> there
>>> was
>>>> an issue with the Commodities Clause of the Interstate Commerce Act
>>> (added
>>>> as part of the Hepburn Act of 1906), and this led to government
>>>> pressure
>>> to
>>>> sell the coal company, which the P&WV did in 1924.
>>>> 
>>>> Mine 7 was shown as being variously in Horning or Large, Pa., in
>>> Jefferson
>>>> Twp.  USGS Co-ordinates are given as:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>      40.3375696 -79.9914409 402015N 0795929W
>>>>      Glassport
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> This is in the present day borough of Jefferson Hills.  Large is a
>>>> part
>>> of
>>>> Jefferson Hills.  This is a few miles southeast of Washington Jct.
>>>> Mine
>>> #7
>>>> was served by the West Side Belt RR, a P&WV subsidiary, at their M.P
>> 18.
>>>> This was about 2 1/2 miles from the point where the West Side
>>>> crossed
>>> over
>>>> the PRR Peters Creek branch.
>>>> 
>>>> I do not think that the reference is to Mine #7.  There were several
>>>> PTCC mines with lower numbers in Castle Shannon or vicinity,
>>>> however.  And I seem to recall a stop on the Charleroi line just south
>> of Washington Jct.
>>>> with a mine s name.
>>>> 
>>>> Dwight
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From: Fred Schneider
>>>> Sent: Thursday, 08 May, 2014 16:18
>>>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Castle Shannon slum???
>>>> 
>>>> This link leads to an abandoned mining patch story in the Pittsburgh
>>> Press
>>>> ("50 Heath Law Violations .") in the postwar period at Castle Shannon.
>>>> Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company sounds like a subsidiary of
>>>> Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad, i.e. the Pittsburgh and West
>>> Virginia.
>>>>  The earlier maps show they did own Mine 7 down at Washington
>> Junction.
>>>> However, I have no clue that it was in Castle Shannon borough in
>>>> 1947
>>> it
>>>> was not 40 years earlier.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mfUaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=40wEAAAAIBAJ&pg
>>> =3890%2C1953753
>>>> 
>>>> Anyone knowledgeable enough to tell me what this refers to in todays
>>> terms?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Herb Brannon
>> 
>> 
>> *In Pittsburgh.............................A City And.........A State of
>> Mind *
>> Let's Go Pens
>> Let's Go Bucs
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> 
> 
> *In Pittsburgh.............................A City And.........A State of
> Mind *
> Let's Go Pens
> Let's Go Bucs
> 
> 
> 
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