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April, 1905 COAL AND TIMBER 25
GREATER DEMAND FOR COAL.
The Chartiers Coal & Coke Co. completed
two great deals for valuable coal
properties the early part of last month.
At least $250,000 was involved in the deal,
and by means of the transfer this corporation
comes into possession of most valuable
lands in the Chartiers Valley and disposes
of a tract on the Tom's Run branch
of the Pittsburg, Chartiers & Youghiogheny
spur of the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railroad.
Both of these extensive transfers of mining
properties were made through Black
& Baird, of Pittsburg. The Chartiers Coal
and Coke Co. purchased through the brokers
484 acres of the best coal land near Oakdale
on the Panhandle railroad. The tract was
purchased from R. B. Mcintosh, and the
price paid was $195,000. The Mcintosh
property which has just changed hands, lies
on the North side of the Panhandle railroad.
The company has already begun the
development of its new lands. An opening
will be made about 200 yards from the
railroad and a switch of this lenngth will
be all that is needed to ship the cars direct
to loading tipples which will be built during
the coming summer.
As the purchasing corporation intends
to develop its territory for all that there
is in it, it will mean the opening of a modern
mine and the ultimate employment of
400 more miners. The enlarging of this
mine will prove, undoubtedly, of the greatest
benefit to the thriving town of Oakdale.
A small bridge will be built across
Within a few days now lake navigation
will be reopened. For several months the
great inland seas have been frozen wastes
and navigation has been impossiblee. In a
short time the lakes will be free from ice
and the mighty interchange of traffic from Thompson's Run. The equipment of the
east to northwest will be resumed with
the energy born of long captivity and interruption.
mine will be up-to-date and modern in every
particular. The power to be used will be
The iron ores will be brought electricity. The complete development of
from the ranges and coal and coke will be the company's plans will require probably
shipped to the northwest in exchange. The a year.
opening of lake navigation each year always
acts as a spur to the coal anil coke of the Chartiers Coal & Coke Co. was com­
The other property figuring in the deal
industry. Coal will be demanded this year pleted the same day on which the deal
in the northwest in greater quantities than for the Oakdale land was made. By this
ever before for there is every indication deal, 40 acres of land on the Tom's Run
that industrial activity this year and for branch of the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railroad
is disposed of. The purchase was
several years to come will be away ahead
of previous records. The railroads are made by the Colonial Gas Coal Co., the
showing their appreciation of the fact that consideration being $50,000. The sale includes
a small mine in good running order,
the ore and coal traffic which they will be
called upon to handle will exceed anything from which coal has been produced for
in history, for they have poured in their several years. The Oakdale property has
orders to car manufacturers for new equipment.
It is figuredout that the railroads per acre is about the average that has been
never been developed and the price of $400
east of the Mississippi need 50,000 new cars paid for other mining properties in the
to handle the immense amount of tonnage same general vicinity during the past two
which is to be disposed of in the next few or three years. It is underlaid with the
months. The Pennsylvania railroad, alone, Pittsburg vein, which at this point, is fine
has placed an order for more than 15,000 and one-half feet in thickness. Preliminary
cars, and other roads are doing so in proportion.
Alost of the cars which have been already been begun.
work on the opening of the mines has
ordered are of the steel gondola type for
the transportation of coal, coke and iron
HAYS MINE RESUMES.
ore. These cars when received will be
placed in commission in the Pittsburg and
Central Pennsylvania districts.
The Hays coal mines, property of the
.Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and
Coke Co., which is situated but a few miles
BIG DEALS COMPLETED. above Pittsburg, has resumed operations
after being closed down for over one year.
It has begun operations again in all of its
branches and has given steady employment
to over 300 men. The mines are near
Riley Station on the Wheeling division of
Baltimore & Ohio railroad, the trestle
from the mine running to the Monongahela
river at Hays Station. Considerable difficulty
has always been experienced in getting
the coal from the mine to the river,
where it has been loaded into boats, on
account of the great distance which has to
be traversed. Rope power is used in the
mine and the pit cars are transported from
pit mouth to tipple by means of small
earn engines. This distance of transportation
is said to have been the cause of the
long shutdown.
MILLION DOLLAR COAL DEAL.
Berwynd, White & Co., of New York,
have entered the soft coal fieldsof West
Virginia, and purchases of property aggregating
nearly $2,000,000 were made this
month. W. P. Rend, of Chicago, and his
son, Joseph Rend, of Columbus, O., have
sold to the New York Syndicate their mines
in the New River field. By some, the consideration
has been placed at $1,250,000;
another report of the transaction says that
the price paid for the immensely valuable
properties was $900,000 cash for the former
owners and a guaranteed royalty of tivt
per cent, on each ton of coal mined.
The properties which have been transferred
are equipped with the most up-todate
machinery and mining appliances and
consist of about 3,800 acres of coal land,
which, with the equipment, represent an
investment of from $800,000 to $1,000,000
The mines are on the Chesapeake & Ohio
railroad at Rend, which is close to Thurman.
Mr. Rend and his son invested in West
Virginia coal after disposing of their Ohio
holdings in Morgan county, four years ago
Edward J. Berwynd represented the New
Yorkers in the transactions. He also bought
1,800 acres of good coal adjoining the Rend
tract from Colonel J. L. Beury. The purchases
carry with them a fuel contract with
the Chesapeake & Ohio road.
PRESIDENT SAVED TIMBER LANDS.
By the stroke of his pen President Theodore
Roosevelt has saved to the government
two and a half million acres of valuable
timber land. This important action was
taken during the closing scenes of the Fiftyeighth
Congress. The act which was passed
and signed prohibits the selection of timber
lands in exchange for lands which have been
included within forest reservations.
In 1897 the lieu-land law was enacted by
Congress. It had no restrictions, simply
entitling persons holding lands in forest
reserves to make selections elsewhere in exchange
for their forest reserve lands. In
1900, these lieu selections were limited to
surveyed lands. Since the passage of these
acts nearly 2,000,000 acres of forest reserve
lands have been exchanged for other lands,
and almost always has the exchange been
made for timbered lands outside of forest
reserves. Nearly half of this land so exchanged
is owned by the land-grant railroads.
A report to Congress from the
Commissioner of the General Land Office
places the amount of lands still held by
these roads in forest reserves at 2,500,000
acres, and the prohibition in the act in question,
that hereafter lieu selections must be
made from untimbered lands, is calculated
to save just that much timbered land which
is outside of forest reserves.
Resolutions emphatically endorsing th°
action of the Pesident in his energetic
measures to save the timber of the country
were adopted by the National Wholesale
Lumber Dealers Association, in convention
in Philadelphia.
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