April 2005 Insulator of the Month

I have a story along with a photo I thought you might want to put in CJ the next time around. It is a story of a beautiful Sim-U-954 Thomas Cross Top glazeweld I found at an old coal mine site.

From a lump of coal comes the discovery of this crown jewel. It's an example of what can result from hard work and persistence. After hearing about an old coal mine, David Adams spent a couple of months just trying to find the location. And when initial searching didn't reveal anything special in the way of insulators, David kept right on looking.

(inside front cover)

In the spring of 2003, I was told about an early coal mine located in the northeaster part of Pennsylvania called West Shenandoah Colliery / Mine (circa 1870). It took almost two months to find the site. After walking through thick brush and over embankments, I finally located some ruins of the site, mostly concrete footings and railroad tracks leading into dark slopes. Since it was such an early site I was in hopes of finding some decent glass or mining artifacts.

Walking along the railroad spur I found common, broken, glass insulators such as CD 133's, 145's and 162's. Most were Brookfields. There was nothing special, but it is always a pleasure to walk the mining country and to be in the wild.

After about two hours of walking I was tired of going over so many culm banks (coal piles) and was heading home when I tripped on some coal chunks. I looked down and there, lying half exposed, was the Sim-U-954. It was covered with mud, but when I wiped it off I saw that yellow porcelain. What a nice find!

Located west of Shenandoah City Borough, the West Shenandoah Colliery / Mine was opened by a slope sunk 285 feet to the first level of a mammoth vein by Michael Maize and William Lewis in 1869. The first shipment of coal was 11,486 tons in 1870.

Maize and Lewis operated the colliery until 1874 when it was purchased by the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company, which owned many coal mines in this region. They sank a shaft to a second level. In 1891, the hoisting slope was extended 510 feet below the third level.

In 1912, miners extended the slope to a sixth level and installed an electric hoist. The site was pretty much out of business by the 1940-1952 period.