Burchinal Coke Works - Outcrop, PA

The Burchinal Coke Works at Outcrop dates back to the early 1900's. The earliest concrete mention I can find for the coke works dates to 1904 but I have seen other sources saying both 1896 and 1898. Burchinal was named for R.S. Burchinal who was superintendent of the Smithfield Coal and Coke Company who constructed the mine and coke works. Burchinal Works was a smaller operation and never seemed to exceed 35 ovens. By 1907 there were 17 ovens.  Smithfield Coal and Coke Company ran the plant until 1918. In 1919 The Clark Coal Company is listed as owning the plant. In 1920 there is an Old Connellsville Coke Company listed as operating the Liberty Works, with 34 ovens at Outcrop. Old Connellsville Coke Company has on its board R.S. Burchinal as SCO and Homer L. Burchinal as Chief Executive. The coincidence is only strengthened by the fact that I can find no mention of Burchinal Coke Works after 1920. 

 

In 1905 there was a train wreck at the coke plant. Burchinal was located on the Fairmont, Morgantown, and Pittsburg Branch of the B&O Railroad. 

 

"A heavily laden freight train, proceeding from the south and drawn by engine 1686, crashed into a half dozen cars that were left standing on the main track by a shifting crew at the coke works. The debris was piled high into the air and the locomotive was almost completely demolished. It, together with a caboose, a car of pit-posts, a car of lumber, and a car of sand, was piled up in a shapeless mass. Several other cars were derailed and it is not thought that the wreckage will be cleared away by late this afternoon. The wrecking crew from here is at work clearing the tracks" (Wednesday, August 30, 1905- Evening Times- Cumberland, MD)

 

Nobody was seriously injured. Engineer Ed Leckenby and Fireman E.S. Gross, both of Connellsville were able to jump free after seeing that an accident was inevitable.  

 

Today, there are probably most of he 34 ovens left at Outcrop. The area is a little tough to get into in and it's pretty swampy around the ovens. South of here, between Outcrop and Crystal Works is an old railroad tunnel with two date stamps on its keystone. 1893 and 1916 are both engraved in the tunnel. Since the branch came through as early as 1893 there might be some credibility to the reports of Burchinal operating in 1896 or 1898.

 

 

After a nice walk through the jagger capital of the world we finally approach the ovens.

All I had to do was get across this swamp.

Most of the ovens remained. I really need to start counting these.

1 Key block.

A good mixture of different types of bricks here too.

The ovens are in decent condition. The area behind them was strip mined in the past.

The bottom of the oven is missing. It made it stand out.

Inside the oven.

There was this big pile of rubble and railroad ties behind the ovens.

Hard to figure this out.

On top of the ovens.

They're starting to collapse.

An old piece of track laying on its side.

South of the ovens. Heading toward the old railroad tunnel.

Inside the tunnel. The walls are starting to fall down.

A nice intact manhole. This is what you would jump into if you were walking through and a train came into the tunnel. For such a small tunnel there were a lot of these manholes.

The southern portal of the tunnel. This is the side with the date stamp.

The double dated stamp.

A couple more shots inside the tunnel. Notice all the manholes.

This is the old Outcrop company store. It's now a pizza shop. The pizza is really, really good. Especially after running up and down this old railroad all day. The owner told me that there was a plan in place for the past 6 years to turn the abandoned railroad into a trail but the money was never available. The plan was to connect Connellsville to West Virginia. There are apparently a number of bridges along the line that need replaced or rebuilt and the money involved prevents it from happening. Maybe someday. For now they've gotten as far as Dunbar from Connellsville on what is called the Sheepskin Trail.

 

Crystal Coke Works - Crystal Works, PA/Springhill Township Fayette County

The Crystal Coke Works dates back to around 1903 and were started by the Sackett Coke Company. The Sackett Coke Company applied for a charter on April 20, 1903. They had a capital stock of $115,000.00 and the directors were William W. Parshall of Uniontown, Hugh R. Sackett, Ross F. Hodges, and Adolph A. Eberhart of Smithfield and William J. Lyons of Gans. At the time they had 160 acres of coal lands and 225 acres of surface. I would assume these coal lands were at the site that would become Crystal. In September of that year they added 164 acres to their holdings. 

 

Crystal Works was located on the Fairmont Branch of the B&O Railroad just above Smithfield. By 1906 the plant had 100 ovens and was shipping their coke as far as Douglas, Arizona where it was used by the copper smelters located there. By 1910 the Sackett Coke Company was running Crystal and another plant of 40 ovens at Madison, Westmoreland County at full capacity. The plant at Madison was purchased in December 1909 from the United Connellsville Coke Company. In 1918 there is a mention of Sackett being involved in business as Sackett and Harsh Coke Company and Crystal Works is listed as being operated by the United Connellsville Coke Company with 120 ovens. The United Connellsville Coke Company is listed as being a subsidiary of the Hillman Coal and Coke Company. In a 1924 "Coke Ovens of the lower Connellsville District" list, Sackett is listed as operating the 30 oven Sackett plant under the H.R. Sackett Coal and Coke Company. In 1926 the Hecla Coal and Coke Company is listed as purchasing 30 acres of coal "adjoining Crystal Works of the Hecla Company". The Hecla Company is listed as being a subsidiary of the "Hillman interests". Backtracking to 1920, the Hillman Coal and Coke Company is listed as operating a crushing and screening plant at Crystal mine.

 

J.H. Hillman had his hands in a little bit of everything.

 

Hugh Rosboro Sackett died on March 20, 1947. He was 87 years old. His obituary states that he still held an interest in Sackett and Harsh as well as Crystal Works so apparently the plant was still operating as late as 1947. Was Sackett involved with it the entire time along with the Hillman Companies?

 

 

In this 1939 aerial Crystal Works certainly appears active.

 

 

Today there is still a bank of ovens at Crystal Works. A lot of the ovens roll over into people's yards and I didn't photograph them because I didn't want to to start taking pictures of somebody's property. The better ovens were back behind the houses so that's what I used. You can see from the photo above how the ovens got close to the houses and where they pulled away. Also notice the tipple and the crusher. The foundation remains from the crusher.

 

 

This small building was sitting near the coke ovens. The concrete slab for a roof probably indicates that this was used to store explosives. If the explosives would accidentally go off the blast would shoot the roof off and direct the blast upward instead of outward.

Another look at the building. This would have probably had a big iron door on it.

The ovens. There really wasn't a lot left.

What remained was in decent condition though.

Starting to go over into the yards.

I'm assuming this is the foundation for the crusher.

 

Hugh Rosboro Sackett
Born March 12, 1860 (New Geneva, PA)
Died March 20, 1947 (Smithfield, PA)

 

Coke Works- Cheathaven/Lake Lynn, PA

Trying to find the name of these ovens is excruciating. I'm pretty sure these ovens were bought, sold, and renamed quite a few times. Another difficulty is the fact that the town changed its name. The only mine map I can find of this area is not dated but it's listed as belonging to the Fancy Hill Coal Company. The earliest mention I can find of the Fancy Hill Coke Works is from 1916. In 1906 there is an Adah Coal and Coke Company operating in the area with 40 ovens. That fits the description pretty well. In 1924 we find the Marion Coke Works with 60 ovens which is also easily fathomable. To throw another wrench into the works, there is a Marion Coke Works dating from 1901 at the site. No other information is offered about the 1901, it's just on a list and it's not an official document. If I find any more specific information I will update this. I could call them Fancy Adah Marion but for now we'll call them the coke ovens at Lake Lynn.

This is a list of coke works built after 1901 from the book "Wealth, Waste and Alienation" by Kenneth Warren. It's not an official document but most of the research that Warren has done is pretty accurate. The name "Marion" and the location is too much to be coincidental in my opinion. What irks me is that Marion doesn't pop up again until 1924.

Now we get into the name changes of the town itself. In this 1902 topographic map it is listed as "Cheathaven".

However, by 1931 it is Lake Lynn. It's the same place.

This is a section of the undated Fancy Hill mine map. You'll notice there are no ovens shown on this map. This map could really use a date.... Anyway, notice the tipple and the coaling station. Evidence of both these structures exist today in a big way. Today while I was out there I was wondering why it seemed like there were two tipples. Now after looking at the map, it makes sense.

So here's what we got:

Regardless of their name, they are an amazing set of ovens.

Drippy oven catching some sort of runoff. Maybe a spring up above? Regardless it keeps the oven so clean.

This is the worst of the lot. Hard to say what happened here.

Another drippy oven.

Famous Garfield tile block.

Strange stages of decay. Some of this brick looks like it was laid yesterday and some of it is falling apart.

Standing on the coke yard. Siding to the right, railroad bed beyond that and the Cheat River at the far right.

OK. These are the supports for where the tipple would have been. Further up we'll see the walls for the coaling station.

According to the map the tipple was fed from a large conveyor that went far up the hill. We'll climb up there in a bit.

A wall on the end of the bank. The space between the banks is where the tipple was located.

A very interesting pipe running behind the retaining wall of the oven.

Different brickwork than the rest.

Moving along.

Yellow brick!

This oven wall collapsed exposing the beehive.

Another separation in the bank. Here is the location of the coaling station.

Wall of the coaling station and the end cap of the oven bank.

Up on top the ovens. Deer skull?

The back of one of the collapsed oven walls. The fronts of the ovens appear to be such neat masonry work but the backs show the real story. Any loose stone or brick you could get ahold of.

Back to that coaling station. This is the wall behind the ovens.

Beyond that and further up the hill are piers from the coaling station.

Looking down from those piers.

The top of the ovens where the larry track would have been.

Down below again. The ruins of the tipple.

We're going to follow the old railroad a little bit. Heading towards Point Marion.

Another look at the ovens.

Further down is this wooden box culvert that goes underneath the rail bed.

Beyond that we find the slate dump.

Behind it are piers leading up the hill.

A lot of piers leading up the hill.

Off to the side. Ruins of some sort of structure. The map doesn't go down this far.

Of course I had to climb the hill.

Beyond this, down in the valley are some more mine dumps.

This is as far as I went.

Looking down toward the river.

And finally a look at the Lake Lynn hydroelectric dam just a little ways up river.

An awesome old photo from the West Virginia Regional History Center.