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April, 1905 C O A L A N D T I M B E R
CONNELLSVILLE
By Raymond Cole.
LETTER.
Connellsville Pa., .March 25—All records
of coke productoii and output in the Connelisville
regions have been broken during
the past month. The estimated tonnage of
coke produced in the Connellsville and
Lower Connellsville districts in March will
reach over 1,500,000 tons. At this rate, production
of coke for 1905 would total upwards
of 16,000,000 tons in the Connellsville
regions alone. The best previous record
for production is a little over 13,000,000
tons. Another feature of the coke trade so
far this year is the fact that prices are
profitable. That this is true is evidenced
by the fact that wages were advanced a
short time ago ten per cent. Coke for the
second half of this year easily commands
$2.40 for standard furnace. Foundry runs
from $3.00 to $3.25, and better.
Production has not been equal to demand.
In the Connellsville region proper, there
are 21,310 ovens of the total 22,655, making
coke six days a week. The H. C. Frick
Coke Company have not an idle oven, except
those scattering here and there that
are out for a day or two for repairs. Of
the 1,345 ovens reported out, more than
half are idle because their coal supply is
exhausted, and the others are not in repair
for operation.
In the Lower Connellsville region, there
are 6,362 ovens. Only 135 of these ovens
are out of blast. These idle ovens are
either in course of construction or are out
for repairs. Tonnage of the two regions
is averaging close to 350,000 tons a week.
Shipments of coke out of the Connellsville
region have reached the phenomenal total
of nearly 15,000 cars a week. Last week
they were 14,831, and this week they may go
to 15,000 even or very close to it. Of these
shipmens the West is taking the lion's
share. More than 8,000 cars of the 14,000
odd cars last week went to Western consumers.
Pittsburg stacks took the balance,
except 1,200 odd cars that went to points
East of Connellsville. The East, naturally,
has been complaining. Consumers there
have entered a protest that they are not
getting their pro rata share of coke.
Small operators of the Connellsville
region are enjoying prosperous times as
a result of prosperous times made by larger
operators, chiefly the H. C. Frick Coke
Company, who this year set the pace for
higher prices of coke as the only means
of maintaining firm market conditions.
A feature of mining and coking in the
Connellsville region in recent months is
the development of the Upper Freeport
vein of coal by the Semet-Solvay Company,
operating the Semet-Solvay ovens
at Dunbar. This vein of coal, which averages
about four to five feet, is being successfully
mined and coked in by-product
ovens of the Semet-Solvay Company, at
Dunbar. The coke is used by the two
stacks of the Dunbar Furnace Company and
has given excellent results.
The opening of three big plants of the
li. C. Frick Coke Company now in course
of construction, will add 1,000 ovens to the
total of the Connellsville region. Three
hundred of these ovens will be built at
Shoaf and 500 at York Run, on the Smithfield
& Masontown branch of the Baltimore
& Ohio railroad. The other plant of
200 ovens will be built at Bitner, on the
Ohio & Baltimore short line of the Baltimore
& Ohio. All of these plants will be
in operation before the first of next September.
Within the past week the Republic Iron
& Steel Company let a contract for 400
ovens in the Lower Connellsville region on
the Monongahela railroad. This short road
running from Brownsville into the Lower
Connellsville district, taps a great tonnage
district. It is operated jointly by the
Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg & Lake
Erie railroad companies. The Orient coke
plant, of 300 ovens, and Labelle, with 200
ovens, on the same road, will shortly come
into the operating works of the region.
In Wharton township, a coal field of
Fayette county, wholly unknown to the
operators, there has been much activity in
optioning within the last few weeks. This
is occasioned by positive assurance that a
short line is to be built by the Baltimore
& Ohio railroad from Confluence, on the
Connellsville Division, to Belington, W. Va.
This road will open up a rich territory in
coal and timber. Thousands of acres of
coal and timber are yet in virgin state in
this township, not to mention great forests
in Northern West Virginia, which will be
tapped by this line. The coal in Wharton
township is of good depth,it is claimed,
from seven to nine feet, butit has always
lacked operating facilities. On the West
Virginia border timber exists in practically
the only tracts, except that of the Stewart
estate at Ohiophyle, that has not been
drawn on by mills in Fayette county.
The building of two dams by the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company in the Indian
Creek Valley will prevent development of
50 square miles of coal and 65 square miles
of timber. The coal in this valley is of
less value than the timber. It is small of
vein, not averaging over four feet. And
besides it is not as clean as veins of similar
height, for instance in the Windber district
of Somerset county. However, it is of
merchantable quality and would find a ready
market should a railroad be built into the
territory. Timber on the head waters of
Indian Creek is of the highest quality.
Millions of feet of oak stand there awaiting
the entrance of railroad facilities to be
placed upon the market. The nearest railroad
connection of any kind to this timber
is close to 20 miles. The erection of dams
on Indian Creek, from three to five miles
above the confluence of that creek with the
Youghiogheny river will shut off all possibility
of the construction of a railroad up
the Indian Creek Watershed.
At present litigation is pending for the
prior right of charters between the Indian
Creek Valley Railroad Company and the
Mountain Water Company, which is subsidiary
to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
The Pennsylvania Company, in this plan
to store water of Indian creek, has in view a
permanent water supply for the Pittsburg
Division as far East as Johnstown. Last
summer the railroads lost hundreds of
thousands of dollars on account of water
famines. The Pennsylvania was not the least
among the losers. Their locomotives failed
with coke trains out of the Connellsville
region in such numbers that consigned loads
were shunted onto side tracks for miles.
Freight congestion resulted, shipments were
delayed, furnaces were compelled to bank
for want of fuel and, trade conditions
generally suffered. A 36-inch main is now
to be laid from two storage reservoirs in
the Indian creek valley, following the Baltimore
& Ohio right of way from Indian
creek to Connellsville, seven miles along the
Baltimore & Ohio and from Connellsville
to Pittsburg along the right of way of the
Pennsylvania Company. Three hundred
men were put to work this week on the
mains and dams.
The Snider tract of 120 acres of Connellsville
coking coal, one of the last bodies of
this seam still in the hands of the original
owners in the district, is reported sold for a
consideration of $100,000. The tract is located
a short distance West of Uniontown
on the National Pike. Harry and George
Whyel, independent operators, are the reported
purchasers. They now have two
plants in operation in the Lower Connellsville
region and the Snider tract would give
them coal for a fine 100 oven plant on the
line of the Pittsburg, Virginia & Charleston
railroad.
Adjoining this tract is one of more than
100 acres owned by Fayette county. It is
under the surface of land owned by the
county surrounding the Poor House. The
coal is the regular Connellsville nine-foot
coking vein and is worth at a small estimate,
more than $150,000. Lately there
has been some talk of the county authorities
developing this coal. The surface is deep
enough to prevent damage to the property
for farming purposes, the only use to which
it is at present put.
In the district between the Youghiogheny
and Monongahela rivers, opposite Fayette
City and Jacob's Creek, there may be coal
purchase before long. The Washington
Coal & Coke Company now have the largest
plants in the Lower Connellsville region in
operation at Star Junction and Perryopolis,
in this district, but between their plants and
the Monongahela river there are still large
bodies of coal held by original owners.
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