In the land of coke: Three takeaways
In the land of coal and coke, the H.C. Frick Company reigned supreme, which is not to say the company had the entire Connellsville Coke Region, stretching from Latrobe to Fairchance, to itself.
There was, for instance, the Oliver and Snyder Steel Company, which operated, early in the 20th century, coke ovens at Olivers 1, 2, and 3. Then there was the W.J. Rainey Company, which operated mines and works in Mt. Braddock and Revere as well as at Royal and Allisons 1 and 2. Rainey ovens totaled more than 1,600.
Next in sheer size was the Thompson-Connellsville Coke Company at Thompson 1 and 2 with 800 ovens, while the Tower Hill Connellsville Coke Company maintained 714 ovens at Tower Hill 1 and 2.
These were dwarfed, however, by Frick, whose Leisenring 1, 2 and 3 works alone amounted to 1,500 ovens. Adding Lemont Furnace, Frick had well over 2,000 coke ovens potentially operating.
But this was only the beginning. Starting at tiny Collier and Bridgeport with 176 ovens between them, the company worked its way up – way up: Dearth had 250 ovens; Oliphant 252; Wynn and Ronco, 300 each; Phillips and Footedale, 400 ovens each; Buffington, 436; Lambert, 452; Trotter, 464; Brief Hill, 470; Edenborn and York Run, each with 500 ovens; Leckrone, 516; and the Colonials, 956.
All of this was enough to prompt one coal broker to protest, in the pages of a trade publication, that it was too much. “Connellsville operators … charge any price they think the market will bear” with the result that ” blast furnace operators” would “rapidly be forced” to look elsewhere for coke or “install their own byproduct coke ovens plants.”
In short order, a highly esteemed coal and coke expert, John W. Boileau, in a speech to the Coal Mining Institute in Pittsburgh, tried to throw an additional bucket of cold water on the flaming pile.
Boileau predicted that in the not too distant future the Connellsville Coke Region would reach the point of exhaustion. Following a 30-year boom during which coke production expanded from 41 million tons to 256 million tons in the first decade of the new century, Boileau, allowing for five percent growth per year, surmised near total collapse in less than 20 years, or around 1930.
Someone should have been listening.
In many ways, we are still living with that generation’s having turned a blind eye to fair warning. The consequences were huge.
However, the failure, in context, is understandable. The collective inability to see around a corner in good times in order to forestall a coming crack up is a reoccurring historical theme.
In those days, local coal and coke owners and operators were constantly being roiled by fatal accidents. On a spring day early in the century, Lemont Furnace 2 teamster William Ray was dragged 100 feet by a runaway horse. When he finally let go, he landed amidst a team of other horses, frightening them. One horse reared up, and falling backwards, landed on Ray, crushing his chest and puncturing a lung. Ray died less than two hours later.
Miners died or were maimed individually or in accidents that claimed dozens at a time. Frick responded to these tragedies with company circulars emphasizing safety measures that mine superintendents should be sure to implement.
One such circular noted the sorrowful record of fatal accidents at company mines – 4.55 deaths per 1,000 miners, “more than twice the percentage in European mines and considerably higher than the average of the bituminous mines in the United States.”
“Accelerate … any further precautions that can be taken,” the circular advised.
Then it was back to business as usual. Mining coal was the bottom line. Miners were paid to produce as much tonnage in a day, a week, a month, a year as possible. “Too much attention cannot be paid to keeping the miners busy,” Frick president Thomas Lynch advised bosses.
This struggle between safety and efficiency, between looking out for workers’ welfare and regarding them as units of production, was one that raged for decades. It’s not clear that Frick — and later U.S. Steel — ever got it right.
Back when Theodore Roosevelt was running for president, he invited to the White House a number of the wealthiest men in America, to solicit their support and cash contributions to his campaign. Over $2.1 million flowed into Republican coffers that presidential election year, 72 percent from corporations, the equivalent of $59 million in 2018 currency.
Following the dinner with the chief executive, coke magnet H. C. Frick handed over $100,000. He later regretted the contribution when TR, safely back in office, resumed his criticism of wealthy businessmen like himself. Frick summarized his disappointment by saying, “We bought the s.o.b. and he didn’t stay bought.”
Now that’s the way to start a presidential election year of our own.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.