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Mine Scenery / Company Housessfp2/2/2004 |
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| "Company Houses" were dwellings built by the coal companies for rental to their workers. Some were rudimentary like the ones seen below at the Eckley Miner's Village. The one shown above, in Audenreid, PA at the end of Church Street, is somewhat larger and more elaborate. | A company house on Upper Street (now Main Street) in Beaver Brook, PA. The edge of the Beaver Brook coalbank is seen at right where the road winds around the foot of the bank to get out to Rte. 309. |
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| View of the Eckley, PA miner's village looking west on January 1, 2004. Eckley has one single street, each side lined with the old style company houses. | The mine superintendent's house at Eckley, PA. The mine officials' homes were usually orders of magnitude larger and more elaborate than those of the mine workers. Still, they were owned by the local coal operator or absentee landlord in the financial centers. In no case did the individual tenant ever own the mineral rights on the property. |
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Left: The company store at the Eckley, PA Miner's Village, January 1, 2004. When Eckley was a coal mining patchtown, not a museum as it is today, the company store was the only convenient commercial outlet. As in most other Anthracite Region patchtowns, expense of travel to larger towns and long working hours compelled the miners and families to buy provisions and supplies only here. This system provided an added benefit to the coal operator, an added disadvantage to the miner who was usually in debt to the company store. The store here in Eckley was rebuilt for the purpose of making the movie, "The Molly Maguires", in the late 1960s. A similarly constructed and painted "company store" existed in Beaver Brook, PA until the early 1950s. By then, however, it was not a property of the coal company. It was operated as a private venture by Joe McNelis of Hazleton, PA. |