History of the Mine Part 1 Tower Hill 2 Mine & Coke Ovens, Tower Hill Pennsylvania
The Tower Hill No. 2 mine was a component of an extraordinary period in American history: the economic boom and subsequent bust, of the Connellsville bituminous coal region. While anthracite coal from northeastern Pennsylvania had been mined commercially since the 1840s, various advances in technology and infrastructure in the mid-nineteenth century soon made the bituminous coal of southwestern Pennsylvania an even more desirable commodity. The Bessemer converter, simultaneously developed by Charles Henry Bessemer and William Kelly, made the production of steel in large quantities possible. Coke (a refined type of coal made by cooking raw coal in ovens) made from bituminous coal was the fuel of choice for the Bessemer/Kelly process, and such coal was found in abundance in rural Fayette County. Connellsville district coal was well suited for conversion to coke, being clean, soft, nearly free of slate and sulfur, and uniform in quality and thickness. It could be coked straight from the mine with no intermediate preparation necessary. The expansion of railroad and riverboat capacity made it possible to transport the rich coke mined and refined in Fayette County to Pittsburgh, which rapidly became the steel production capitol of the United States.
The Tower Hill No. 2 mine and coke manufactory began operations in 1907 in the Lower Connellsville Coking District, also called the Klondike because its 1899 opening coincided with the Alaska gold rush. The Klondike region was the last area to be mined in the Connellsville Coking District. The increased demand for coke, an abundant coal supply, and the region's proximity to numerous steel companies enabled the Connellsville District to grow to encompass 147 square miles, reaching from Latrobe southwest through Westmoreland and Fayette Counties almost to the West Virginia line. The coal seam averages 3.5 miles in width. By 1880, the region produced 72.16 percent of the nation's coke. Seventy-five percent of local wage earners were involved in the industry.
Initially, most companies producing coke in the Connellsville district were small, local family-owned operations. H.C. Frick changed that after he bought out many of his struggling competitors during the Panic of 1873. Aligning with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, Frick tried to establish domination over the booming coke industry. Frick's activity drew the attention of other industrial capitalists and soon the industry was controlled by companies headquartered in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The founder of the Tower Hill plant, Josiah VanKirk Thompson, recognized that corporate involvement would inevitably bring rapid development and escalating land values, and he capitalized on this trend.
J.V. Thompson was president of the First National Bank of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, but his true avocation was real estate investment. Thompson engineered the rise of the Klondike coke district at a time when experts thought its coal to be vastly inferior to that available in the Upper Connellsville Field. Thompson's strategy was to purchase land parcels from local farmers, consolidate them into marketable blocks, and then sell the blocks to coal developers. Thompson systematically selected terrain that would realize the highest returns on his investments. He purchased along river beds and rail lines, enabling him to control the lands beyond because developers would have to cross his property to access transportation to market. Local entrepreneurs, large and small, routinely entrusted their savings to him to invest in such speculative ventures. In addition to making himself and many of his investors millionaires, he transformed the First National Bank into the nucleus of the Klondike economy. By the time corporate investors realized the value of Klondike coal, Thompson had acquired most of the land in the region. Parcels on which Thompson acquired options at $25 per acre, he later resold for as high as $2,500 per acre. Coal barons such as Frick and W.J. Rainey, whose holdings were in the Upper Field, which was rapidly being depleted, were forced to pay Thompson's high price in order to expand their holdings and maintain their standing in the industry. By 1907, J.V. Thompson had become Fayette County's largest individual taxpayer.
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Early in the twentieth century, J.V. Thompson decided to diversify his investments into the actual production of coke. Thompson formed the Thompson- Connellsville Coke Company in 1906 to manufacture coke at the Thompson No. 1 and No. 2 plants. The opening of the two Thompson extraction and coking operations propelled J.V. Thompson to the position of second largest independent operator in the region, behind W.J. Rainey. He also developed the nearby Isabella-Connellsville Coke Company, and held executive positions with Rich Hill Coke Company, Harrison-Dodridge Coal and Coke, Greene County Coal Company, Liberty Coal Company and Wetzel Coal and Coke in addition to presiding over the Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad.
Tower Hill No. 2 was constructed the following year, in 1907, by the Tower Hill-Connellsville Coke Company of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. J.V. Thompson sold 2,000 acres to the company for $3,400,000, for both the Tower Hill No. 1 and 2 plants. The Tower Hill-Connellsville Coke Company was well capitalized at its inception, with $2,590,000 in bonds, $1,500,000 in preferred stock and $4,000,000 in common stock, with Thompson holding a controlling interest in the company. Tower Hill No. 2 was planned to be an ultra-modern plant under the direction of Secretary and General Manager L.W. Fogg. Fogg was considered an expert in coke plant development, and was also affiliated with Republic Iron and Steel. Originally, 1,000 coke ovens were planned for the two Tower Hill works, but only 714 of the Tower Hill ovens came to fruition, with 394 of those are located at the No. 2 works.
The coal at Tower Hill No. 2 was so soft that it could be extracted from the earth without blasting, saving much in production costs. Workers first struck coal in September of 1907 at a depth of 310 feet. H.F. Stark is attributed with sinking the mine shaft and the original coke ovens were built by Rimonti Gilardi of Connellsville. Only thirty of the ovens had been constructed at No. 2 by November, 1907. Gilardi also designed and installed a duct, or draught, system to drive surplus heat from the ovens to the boilers, devising an economical way to heat water.
