The Busy Blacklick Valley
Monday, April 23rd, 2007A Section of Earth Whose Industries Are Bound to Cut a Considerable Figure
by Charles Hasson, Weekly Tribune Staff Correspondent
Ebensburg, Jan. 23 – Few people who have not been in the Blacklick Valley recently would be able to recognize the wilderness that it was a few years ago. Prior to 1893, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company extended the Ebensburg & Cresson Branch to Vintondale, the country which the road traverses was wild mountain land. No effort had been made to till the soil along the Blacklick and miles and miles could be traveled without seeing a single habitation. The extension of the railroad, as if by magic, transformed the valley into live, hustling communities and busy hives of industry. Sawmills were created to turn the giant trees of the forest into lumber. Many coal mines were opened, so that the Blacklick region might yield up its vast mineral wealth to the busy mills and factories of the East. New towns and villages sprung up, as if by the magician’s wand, to house and care for the many workmen and artisans who found employment among its inhospitable hills.
To-day thousands of tons of coal are being shipped from this prosperous valley, the people are happy and contented, and no more promising coal region exists in Pennsylvania. And it is only in its infancy.
A Modern Aladdin’s Work.
But if wonderful improvements have taken place between Ebensburg and Vintondale, even more important improvements have been made between Vintondale and Blacklick Station in Indiana County, to which point the Pennsylvania Railroad has recently been extended. If the improvements in the east end of the valley show evidence of the hand of the magician in their creation, then surely nothing short of an Aladdin and his wonderful lamp could have brought about the remarkable transformation in the other end of the valley. And it is to the lower end of this valley that the writer would call the special attention of the reader.
Beginning at a point about one mile northeast of Vintondale, along the route of the P.R.R., on the north side of the railroad, a big coal operation is being put in which promises to be one of the most extensive along the Blacklick Creek. Last summer a corporation known as Cambridge Bituminous Coal Company, under the direction of an Eastern capitalist named McGinnis, of Frackville, Schuylkill County, started to open two slopes. These slopes are now about ready to be worked. The mines as opened will afford much room, and will be standard mines in every particular. They are now being equipped with what is known as the “endless rope haulage system,” which will be employed to bring the coal to the surface, where the cars will be attached to an electric motor and hauled to the tipple some distance beyond. The entrance to the slope is about 3,000 feet from the railroad, and a very fine specimen of trestle work has been erected over which the cars will be hauled to be dumped. Mr. McGinnis states that as soon as the weather moderates a little the work of laying out a substantial town will be proceeded with. Even at the present time a road bridge has been constructed and the place has taken on the appearance of a hustling community. The location is unquestionably an admirable one for the rearing of an ideal coal town.
The next town along the route of the railroad is Vintondale, and as so much has been written of this prosperous place, the writer will pass it by, merely stating that here the Vinton Colliery Company operates one mine, a drift, and the Lackawanna Coal Company operates two mines, known as No.1 and No.2, from which much coal is taken and which adds considerable to the prosperity of the town.