Blackout in a West Virginia Coal Mine

We were in a hole, a black hole, damp, cool, and dark. Our tour guide said, "I’m going to shut off the lantern now, and I want you to touch your eyebrow with your finger. See if you can see your finger."

He turned off the lantern, and the coal mine became a big black hole. I touched my eyebrow but could not even see my finger that was right in front of my eye.

"In the old days, coal miners burned bacon fat in a simple lantern. That’s is all the light they had to work by," the tour guide said.

I was grateful when he flipped the electricity back on.

We were in the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine in Beckley, West Virginia. Mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, and me. I’m Cody Etu, 17.

This mine was last worked in 1910. It stays a cool 56-58 degree F year-round.

"If a man died in here," the tour guide said, "they’d just wait and take him out at quittin’ time."

Then he started talking about the miners' lunch and the pail they carried. Drinking water in the bottom, a tray of crusty food, and a little bit of stale bread to keep the rats away.

I was checking my cell phone for messages, but there was no service. Dad poked me in the ribs: "Listen to this, Cody."

The tour guide was talking about a canary. Yes, a little yellow canary. What does a canary have to do with mining coal? He showed us a little canary cage, about half the size of a shoe box.

"Miner’s would carry this cage in with them," he told us. "When the canary died that meant you’d better get out of the mine or you’ll be next." It was all about the oxygen level.

To say mining in those days was hard work is to say nothing. They often worked in standing water, and had to kneel in it using a breast auger to drill into the coal vein.
They couldn’t stand straight up because the ceiling wasn’t high enough.

If you want to learn more about coal mining, this is the place to start.

There's a museum and a bunch of other buildings on the site, too, that give you an idea of what a company-owned coal town was like, including the Rahall Company Store, the Coal Company House, the camp church, the camp school, and typical living quarters, with an outhouse.

www.beckleymine.com