Coal mining in Pennsylvania dates back to the 17th century. It saw many ups and downs throughout history. The 1870s and 1930s were considered as the golden era of coal mining in Pennsylvania. Bituminous coal was first mined in Pennsylvania at ‘Coal Hill’. By 1830, the city of Pittsburgh consumed more than 400 tons per day of bituminous coal for domestic and light industrial use. Bituminous coal production in western Pennsylvania grew rapidly with the population growth and steel industry boom.
The early mines used the so-called ‘room-and-pillar’ method, a mining system in which the mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane, creating horizontal arrays of rooms and pillars. They did not include retreat mining, instead, they relied on manual labor o cut the coal at the working face and the coal was hauled from the mine by horse and wagon.
Photographer John Collier visited some of these coal mines and documented the gritty life of miners working in Montour No. 4 Mine of the Pittsburgh Coal Company in 1942. His photographs revealed the underground life of the miners, laying tracks and deploying the machinery, drilling, blasting with dynamite while being careful from possible collapses.
