Moving the earth in Muskingum, one busload at a time...

Ohio's abundance of coal has created many economic opportunities, including in ways to excavate the ore.  Muskingum County has a paradoxical monument dedicated to coal mining that is simultaneously large and small.  Strip mining requires large amounts of earth to be moved and a tiny park just outside McConnellsville pays tribute to the gargantuan machines that did it.

The park sits atop a hill looking over once-stripped hills where one particular drag-line machine known as the Big Muskie excavated more than 600 million cubic yards of earth. In its heyday, the Big Muskie was the largest mobile land machine ever built.  First put into operation in 1969, the Big Muskie rumbled, albeit slowly with hydraulic "feet", across the landscape until 1999 when it was dismantled.

While the coal excavated far out-weighed the operating cost, the Big Muskie needed the electrical equivalent of 27,000 homes to operate.  From the tip of the crane's boom to the ground was a staggering 32 stories. The 27 million pound machine weighed the equivalent of 13,000 cars.

The Big Muskie's career ended after legislation was passed on surface mining that forced owner American Electric Power (AEP) to "scrap" efforts to save the excavator as a historic treasure.  One of the three buckets, each which could hold two Greyhound Busses, was managed to be saved and relocated at the current park.  Pictures of the bucket being moved to its final destination are staggering to think of the sheer size of the entire mechanized monster.

The current park is little more than a roadside pull off, but offers static displays, memorialized markers and the centerpiece of the Big Muskie bucket.  AEP maintains the site, calling it the Miner's Memorial, and has an educational display of how mining provides power to the area.  One stunning photograph shows an entire area High School Marching Band snuggly fit inside the bucket.

Big Muskie draws visitors, including less desirable ones, who use the bucket as a source of graffiti.  While vehicle traffic is restricted from November to April, the views from the hilltop toward the horizon offer a moment of reflection on what was and what has become.  The entire area is a 60,000 acre reclaimed space that AEP had once stripped bare for coal.  Today the growth of the planted trees can offer a fall delight of colors.

Nearby McConnelsville, the country seat of Morgan County, is much older than the modern strip-mining economy.  Between railroad and steamboat traffic, McConnelsville was once a thriving community of 30,000 in its heyday in 1850.  Still today the Opera House from the turn of the 20th Century still stands and the feel of a Civil War town is evident as you pass through downtown.

Ohio, as America, has moved from the Industrial Age into the Information Age, the economy has struggled to transition.  While the money could never be raised to preserve the whole of Big Muskie, and what an attraction that would have been, history has been saved and is on display in the rolling hills that powered the transition of a state and nation from agricultural to industrial.

- J.

Dishing the dirt... on coal in Guernsey County

You will be hard-pressed to gain a better understanding of the life of a coal miner than a 10-mile trek along the rails winding south and west through Guernsey County along the Byesville Scenic Railway (see right, click to enlarge). Just two miles south of the I-70 and I-77 interchange, Byesville is a stop along the Marietta & Pennsylvania Railroad and later the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O).

It is the combination of Ohio's earthen riches (coal) and transportation routes that make Guernsey County significant to history. Zane's Trace, a government funded trail in the late 1790s, was constructed to open up the lands of Ohio and Kentucky to the east, passed directly through the county. Zane's Trace became the National Road, and eventually U.S. 40, and further developed as an interstate (I-70) in the 1960s through the Eisenhower Interstate System. Just as the interstate system bisects the county, so do the rail lines moving significant amounts of cargo through Ohio to the Great Lakes and beyond.

The Byesville Scenic Railroad (BSR) offers a casual (about 12 mph) trip along the Marietta & Pittsburgh and B&O lines, beginning in its namesake, Byesville (see right, click to enlarge). The town's growth a hundred years ago was due to the high volume of coal workers in the area descending upon the city. Following the Civil War, coal mining became a huge endeavor in and around Byseville with dozens of mines being operated (see full history of Guernsey County). The city was incorporated in 1882 with a mere 300 people and today stands at 2,500 according to 2000 census totals. Between its incorporation and the height of the coal era, over 12,000 people (mostly coal miners in the region) are said to have visited town for shopping and entertainment.

The newly built station in Byesville (see left, click to enlarge) is the starting (and concluding) point for the rail excursion. Still being finished in the summer of 2010 were what appeared to be permanent offices, restrooms and souvenir shop. Here, passengers climb aboard one of several old rail cars, some originally built in 1918, nestled behind the purple and black diesel locomotive replete with logos of the BSR. Recently flooding severely damaged rails along the route, but despite this the BSR, certainly not immune to the modern economic difficulties of non-profit organizations, rebuilt the sections and operates normal tours and special excursions.

The cars (see left, click to enlarge) are spacious with ceilings that would be high for even modern luxurious homes. The windows, although aged, open and hold at different heights. It is recommended that passengers refrain from sticking anything out the window as the windows are heavy and dislodging from the set height could seriously hurt an appendage -- not to mention at several points objects along the railbed are very close (bridge trestles) or brush the cars (shrubs and branches). Looking at the details of the near century old passenger car one can find details of craftmanship that are noted on hinges, fasteners and latches (see right, click to enlarge).

The southern five mile route is a leisurely roll through gentle countryside but also economic hard times. From the windows can be seen sweeping hills, open wetlands and struggling local areas in another part of Ohio hard hit after industry has moved on. Through a wireless microphone and a speaker swaying dizzily from a mount on the car's ceiling mid-train, a narrator talks of the railroad, the landscape, the people of the area and a little about coal mining.

Some of the wetlands passed are more recent, as mother nature is reclaiming abandoned coal mines as collapsing roofs and mineshafts lead to natural flooding of the freshly created lowlands.

The area and people have seen tough times, and is evidenced by some of the sites seen outside the car's window. A few makeshift memorials are passed along the way for those who gave their lives in the grueling and dangerous occupation of coal mining (see left, click to enlarge). There is a movement by the BSR to construct a permanent memorial in Byesville that tributes coal miners.

Along the way the narrator jokes about the "local airport", where at one of the homes passed an old plane fuselage sits at the rear of the property either in storage or awaiting restoration. Another property showcases what looks like a 1950s gas station, with vintage pumps, building and signage -- and even the frame of an appropriate era car (see right, click to enlarge).

The train settles to a stop (see left, click to enlarge) about 8 miles from another Ohio tourist destination, The Wilds (web, previous blog entry). The wildlife preserve, operated by the Columbus Zoo, is located in Cumberland, Ohio and future plans (already under way) are to connect the BSR with the Wilds to give tourists a chance for a train ride on their visit to the preserve. The seats are here reversed in the cars (to keep a forward view of the activities) and the narrator undertakes a transformation.

The return trip, giving the tourist an alternative from much of the same vistas just encountered out the window, is an entirely different experience. The narrator applies some make-shift make-up to take on the look of a coal miner complete with tools (see left, click to enlarge). He enters into more of a first-person role and the following hour is time well spent back in history and deep underground. A little Johnny Cash provides the soundtrack at the beginning of Act II (as it were), as the strains of "owe my soul to the company store" (from Sixteen Tons, an often recorded folk song) set the tone for this trip back in time and back to Byseville.

Such personal interaction with the working conditions that were harsh (coal dust, trapped gases, flooding, etc.) to treatment that was less than ideal (payment of 10 cents a ton) and work that wasn't always constant (see right, click to enlarge) provides a stark contrast to the serene first half of the excursion. One learns of how the company store owned the worker, where payment (done in scrip) was redeemed only at that store and even homes were built on future scrip credit. All of the miners working tools, clothes, lunch pail, etc. were bought from his own pocket... and at the company store. As the narrator implies, it was essentially a form of slavery or indentured servitude.

It is a wonderful ride back in time, and the entire return trip feels like an authentic journey to a place a century ago where workers toiled long and hard, prying from thin and long veins in the earth the raw materials that would propel America into post-war Prosperity. Often overlooked is that many a men chose a different wartime path of patriotism by going into the mines to provide the literal fuel that would fire a nation's industry in wartime. The planned memorial seems all the more fitting upon arrival back in Byesville.

It's another of Ohio's intriguing place in history that can be found just minutes off the highway, along roads travelled hundreds of years by countless individuals.

- J.

Little Cities of Black Diamonds

Mother nature blessed Ohio with many natural resources, but none had the same immediate economic impact as coal did in Southeastern Ohio. The veins of coal that run through hills around Athens, Ohio led to an economic boom prior to the dawn of the 20th Century and turned a series of sleepy little hollows into thriving communities. But as quickly as these towns boomed, shifting coal mining technology turned many of these towns into literal ghost towns while others struggle still today to survive.

In the late 1800s, coal was being excavated from the hills of Southeast Ohio through hard, tedious and dangerous human labor. A day's wage was dependent upon how much good coal a worker could produce, often at a rate of 10 cents a ton. But that also was for quality coal, not just shale and other bits of less valuable rock. Between dangerous working conditions and disputes over wages, coal workers had a rough life.

The tri-county area of Athens, Perry and Hocking Counties is the geographic home to the Little Cities of Black Diamonds region. It is one of the poorest areas of Ohio, if not the entire country. Trying to find viable opportunities for economic growth is challenging enough, but trying to revitalize historic structures is harder yet. But little by little, at almost a glacier-like pace, the Little Cities are finding ways to transform history into economic opportunity.

Driving by Rendville, Ohio (map, history) at 60 mph on Ohio Route 13, you would hardly think this was a town. But at the turn of the century Rendville's population was at 2,000 (see photo here), of which 300 were African-Americans. In 1884 there averaged a bar for every 24 people in the town. Comparatively, the 2000 Census shows a population of 46 people in 12 households. Today Main Street is barely 500 feet long and has six different properties, of which one is a circa 1860s church (see top left, click to enlarge) and another a condemned home (see right, click to enlarge) being renovated as a project by students and nearby Ohio Univesity.

Today the church serves as a beacon of a different sort, one of how to find a new use for a historic property. The church (see left, click to enlarge) has been turned into a combination workshop and folk art studio for disadvantaged adults (YouTube video here). Each day students work in conjunction with volunteers to produce various folk art treasures that are offered for public sale. The church still retains its original tin ceiling and steeple.

Just under 10 miles to the west at the junction of Ohio 93 and 155 is another of the Little Cities, the town of Shawnee (map, historic pictures). The story of each of the Little Cities is similar to the other, where the enterprise of coal built a town, followed by its near abandonment as the coal ran out. Route 155 has now bypassed the city, but only by several hundred feet. Driving this route will reveal a glimpse of huge murals on the back side of the buildings along the main street.

Shawnee, however, has unique architectural features that place a style with the region. Along the main street nearly all of the buildings have second story porches that overhang the sidewalk (see left, click to enlarge). The arching supports to each are very distinct and unlike other places. Preservation efforts are being attempted to maintain the look of the downtown, but with the state of economics in the region the task is monumental.

The jewel of downtown Shawnee is the Tecumseh Opera House (see left, click to enlarge). The cavernous second floor theater rivals the size of any modern day theater (an individual theater, not the complex) and is said to have hosted basketball games on its floor. It is the tallest structure in Perry County and nearly did not survive modern times. During the 1970s the building was slated for demolition to reclaim the steel. But the building was saved and is being slowly renovated with the hopes of restoring to full operational condition (see right, click to enlarge). While it may seem unusual to see such a grand theater (at one point) in such a remote and depressed area, during their prime time just about each of the Little Cities had one, if not two, opera houses for entertaining the coal miners and families.

A block down from the Tecumseh is a rather unique and creative re-usage of a detoriating property. One of the vacant storefronts suffered a roof collapse and the cost to repair was prohibitive for a building with no tenant and no prospects for use. So the entire roof and second floor were demolished and a garden planted, open to the sky. It is an unusual feeling to walk through a storefront doorway and see plants and trees and look up to the sky (see left and right, click to enlarge).

Shawnee is the home for the Little Cities of Black Diamonds organization and across from the Tecumseh is a gift shop and just down the block the offices of the non-profit community-based organization. The group has secured federal grants to assist in their revitalization attempts.

A few miles down Ohio 93 is New Straitsville (map, pictures). While the storyline is much the same here, both in the boom and bust of the town, there is a unique aspect that burns even as time marches forward. The volatile relationship between labor and management led to numerous coal strikes. The unofficial birthplace of the United Mineworkers is here in New Straitsville, having been formed at Robinson's Cave (see left, click to enlarge).

In 1884 a coal strike resulted in an unusual attempt to disrupt the replacement workers, hoping to bring a resolution to the conflict. Coal cars were loaded with coal and doused with gasoline and sent back into the mines. The coal car ignited the underground seam of coal which could not be extinguished and, incredibly, still burns to this day. The mine fire drew tourists to the area, albeit briefly, and there are historic photos showing people cooking eggs in skillets over seams where the fire burns. Needless to say, the mine ceased operation.

Coming into New Straitsville there is a large mural, similar to ones seen in the other of the Little Cities, with an old wood car of coal below it. The mural project was undertaken between the Little Cities organization and the area schools for students to look at the town's past and envision its future and paint the sides of buildings in the town (see right, click to enlarge).

The area today is surrounded by Wayne National Forest and attempts are being made at luring the wealthy, suburban vacationers into the region. There is also a Moonshine Festival (see left, click to enlarge) that celebrates the heritage of homespun beverages that also draws tourists. It is a tough sell to the state and beyond, as time marched quickly past many of these cities, but the Little Cities of Black Diamonds seeks to preserve and promote a significant era of both Ohio and American History in the hills of Southeast Ohio.

-J.