This is a picture taken at the White Brothers coal mine in Adams Township, Iowa, in the late 1800's. Many communities, like the ones in Adams Township, have little or no presence in Mahaska County today. Once the coal industry diminished, the…
This is a picture taken at Sam Smith Coal Mine back in 1895. The Sam Smith coal mine was located southwest of Oskaloosa College, which today is on the 1300 block of High Avenue West. Today, many buildings and facilities in Oskaloosa were once the…
This is a picture taken at Sam Smith Coal Mine back in 1895. The Sam Smith coal mine was located southwest of Oskaloosa College, which today is on the 1300 block of High Avenue West. Today, many buildings and facilities in Oskaloosa were once the…
This is a picture taken at the Old Excelsior Mine Shaft #2 back in 1886. The mine was located three miles south of Oskaloosa, Iowa, in Mahaska County. Today, many buildings and facilities in Oskaloosa were once the site of a coal mining operation. …
This is a photograph of the Muchakinock Coal Mine in 1896. Muchakinock was located a few miles south of Oskaloosa, located in Mahaska County, Iowa. Today, like many other communities in Mahaska County, there is nothing left in the once thriving…
This 1896 image shows the coal mining operation going on at Lost Creek, Iowa, located near Eddyville in Mahaska County. Lost Creek is the site of one of the deadliest coal mining explosions in history. On Friday, January 24, 1902, around noon, 67…
This 1896 image shows what the coal mining operation looked like in Colon, Iowa. Colon, located south of Oskaloosa in Mahaska County, was another town that went from a thriving community to nonexistence in a matter of a few years. Today, the only…
This photograph gives an inside look of a coal mine in 1896, Oskaloosa, Iowa. Coal mines were unsafe and unhealthy places to work. Many men developed a disease known as the black lung, which ultimately led to a coal miner's death.
Few men have enjoyed more success in both the railroad and coal mining industries than H.W. McNeill. Born June 18, 1847, in Peoria, Illinois, Hobart W. McNeill studied at the University of Virginia until the school was closed by the Confederacy. …
