The Mine

On the way to Don's parents in Parkersburg, WV (in the northwestern tip of the state, just inside the Ohio border) I saw a billboard for an Exhibition Coal Mine in a town two hour's south of Parkersburg called Beckley. Deanna's been studying fossil fuels in school and with the recent accidents in WV Mines, we've all become interested in coal mining.

Dad and I visited a Welcome Center the next day to get information about the Mine. It opened on April 1, so we planned a trip on Tuesday.

I was amazed by what I learned. I guess I had some sort of romantic image of coal mining. Instead, what we saw was a pitch black (the mine owners refused to light the mines - it cost too much), wet (amazing how much ground water drips into the mine constantly), cold, narrow, and the heighth of the mine, from the very opening, ranged from 18 to 36 inches, based on the heighth of the coal car that was being used at the time.

The miners began their day crawling on their bellies with only the light on their hats to assist them. They had to purchase all their own tools and had to know how to use explosives. They would blast an area and, after lighting the fuses, had only 30 seconds to crawl out of that area or be caught in the falling rock. They were required to fill 10 1-ton cars before they could crawl out again. This typically took 16 - 18 hours - in the cold, wet, lonely darkness. Their only companionship was the canary they were required to buy and take in with them. If the canary stopped singing, they had 45 seconds to get out before the fumes would kill them, as well. For all this, they were paid 20 cents a ton. They made a whopping $2.00 a day for their 18 hours of work. Out of this came their fees to the doctor and dentist, their rent on their shack, the cost of their food and provisions, their tools, their canary, clothing ...

They weren't paid in cash. They received Company Script which could only be used at that particular mine's store, which charged three times the usual price for everything sold there. The Company Store would cash out Script for 80 cents on the dollar, but the miners didn't have time to go anywhere else to shop, so why bother?

It became extremely obvious that once a mining family, always a mining family. No man could break the cycle and get out of the mine. He couldn't afford to. And his children had no options available to them but the same mine.

It was a shocking revelation for us. It's an experience I'll never forget. I know that conditions are very different these days and miners are paid well, but somehow, the stain of the past still washes this industry. The recent mining disasters are evidence of that.

One last interesting thing we learned. In the gift shop, there were display cases with memorabilia. There was a newspaper article about the War that occurred when the miners attempted to Unionize. The Mine Owners hired private militia. The Miners stold cannons from the Mine Owners and there was a real war with many deaths. The Governor finally came and begged the Miners to give up, which they did, to spare needless deaths. The Mine Owners, however, continued to refuse to allow Unions. It wasn't until the death of that generation of Mine Owners that Unions finally were able to make an enroad into mining. And, for a generation, any men involved with the Unions or who had helped to try and Unionize were blackballed and not allowed to work at all.

This whole experience made me ashamed of our country, ashamed of humankind and the greed that drives industry. A fitting revelation to have during Holy Week. Mining was far worse than slavery, because at least slavery was appropriately named and had people willing to fight a civil war to ban it from the future of our country. The Miners, however, had no support for their battle. The Government was well-paid by mine owners and, therefore, sided with them.

I know that there are many other injustices in the world, but I'm glad to see that this one has been battled and won, even if many lives were lost to accomplish it.

And I'll pray more fervently for our Miners in the future. Their lives are still hard, their work harder, and their future dim. May the Lord bless their work and those of us who benefit from it.