Lucas County's coal mining industry in 1887

I've written often about Lucas County's coal industry, a major factor in our home's economics and culture for a century. The era began in January of 1876 when the first steps were taken toward opening the Whitebreast Coal Company's Shaft No. 1 near Lucas and ended during August of 1978 when the Big Ben mine ceased operations in Pleasant Township.

But I've never reproduced the following --- a verbal snapshot from The Chariton Herald of Feb. 17, 1887, of the industry's status during that year. The photograph of Whitebreast No. 1 was taken seven years earlier, during 1880, and is in the Lucas County Historical Society collection.

By 1887, the incorporated village of Cleveland had been developed by the coal company to house mining families and the unincorporated village of East Cleveland had developed immediately to the east to house, among others, a substantial population of black miners and their families. The Zero mine, northeast of Russell, never quite got off the ground.

Here's the text of The Herald's 1887 article:

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There are some 12 or 14 coal mines open in the county, those at Zero in the east part of the county employing a hundred or more men while those of the Whitebreast Coal Company in the west part of the county are the largest in the state. Two shafts are operated by the Whitebreast company, the output of which places Lucas county third in rank among the 30 coal bearing counties of the state.

The company was organized in January, 1876, and in the following October the first shipments of coal were made. The two shafts are about three quarters of a mile apart, and around each quite considerable villages have grown up. Shaft No. 1 is in Jackson township, while shaft No. 2 is in Whitebreast township, the towns being named Cleveland and East Cleveland respectively.  The town of Lucas is a mile west and Chariton six miles east.

Shaft No. 1 gives employment to about 320 men while 600 are employed at No. 2, of which 200 or more are colored. The vein worked runs from five to seven feet in thickness, and lies about 230 feet below the surface. The equipment of machinery is of the best makes, everything being constructed with a view to strength, speed, convenience and safety.

Three kinds of coal are prepared for market, lump, nut and pea, while a ready market is found for the slack, or fine coal. All of the coal used by the Q road west of the mines and by the B. & M. in Nebraska is furnished by these mines. The first electric light in the state was put in at Shaft No. 1, the apparatus being one that received an award at the Centennial. The revolving screen for separating coal at No. 2 was one of the first erected in the state.

There are from twelve to fifteen hundred people in the two villages, many of the miners at Cleveland owning their own property while at East Cleveland the houses, seventy-five or more, belong to the company. Miners make from two to five dollar a day and not a few have laid aside handsome sums.

J.C. Osgood is president of the company and was the principal projector of the enterprise and T. J. Phillips is the gentlemanly superintendent who looks after the interests of the company in a satisfactory manner.