Coal Mine Museum Opens

I felt very close to this story because my father hauled house coal in the 60s and 70s and my grandfather was killed in a coal mine when he was only 39. He left a wife and four children, ages four to 14.

By ALAN FOSTER
Daily American

Not long ago coal was king. Men worked on their knees deep underground to bring it to the surface. The wages they made fed their families. The black diamonds powered a nation. Some of those men heard a timber crack and it was their last sound. They never came out. Mothers raised children alone. The dust got many with the black lung. But while the work was hard and the conditions difficult, at the end of the day they knew who they were what they had accomplished and went back in again the next day, proud to be called a coal miner.

There is a new place to see this story in Windber. On Saturday the Windber Coal Heritage Center was dedicated with politicians, speeches, flags and a high school band. The 2.2 million dollar facility boasts a large map of a Berwind-White mine, similar to the electric map at the Gettysburg battlefield, walls filled with memorabilia of 100 years of Windber area mining, and a gift shop. The lower-level has black walls and is reminiscent of going into a deep mine. "Notice the change in temperature as you go down to steps," Chris Barkley, site manager said. It is a little cooler, but not much different from the first floor. The most compelling feature of the mine level are videos of miners telling their story. With the touch of a button you see living history and anecdotes of life and work underground. The third floor houses community rooms.

"Coal and steel workers should feel good about this museum. We have had a real impact on the world because of our industrial might. The heart of the industrial revolution was right here," Congressman John Murtha said at the dedication. Murtha said tourism is the biggest business in the world these days and the new museum was part of several sites designed to bring tourists to southwestern Pennsylvania. "People who have never been in a coal mine can get a better understanding of what it is like. From here they can go to the Johnstown Flood Museum, Horseshoe Curve or the Saltzburg canal," Murtha said.

"Last week the Somerset Historical Center honored its first 100 years. The early farmers worked the glades and today we honor that second wave of immigrants who worked the mines," Somerset County commissioner David Mankamyer said.
The museum is part of a 13-site assembly of attractions that can be seen with a reduced rate "passport" which allows visitors two or four days to visit All of the sites.