Today we went on a field trip with Tyler's 4th grade class to a coal mine in West Virginia! How cool is it that we go to another state on a field trip??!! Tyler thought it was great, especially because he says West Virginia is his favorite state - I still don't know why he says that. Anyways, we had a very long (or what seemed like a long!) bus ride to the mine. It was only about 1 1/2 hours, but on a bus when your legs are as long as mine, well it's not too comfortable! The drive was gorgeous. All the trees are turning here and they are so beautiful. We had a lot of fun going into the mine and hearing the tour guide tell us things. The tour guide was great, he was an older man who used to work in a mine. One funny comment from one of the kids really made us laugh. The tour guide was saying how the miners were only paid .20¢ for a ton of coal, so the boy asked the tour guide if he was only paid .20¢ when he worked. Everyone laughed at that.
I am so glad I didn't have to work in a mine - the conditions sounded almost unbearable. The ceiling height was never more than 36 - 48", so you had to crawl into the mine and all around inside the mine. There was no electricity, hardly any light. They had very tiny lights that they could use but only would last for about 1 1/2 hours at the most. They had to lay on their side to pick the coal and to shovel it into the wagon. And, the mine went back about 7 miles! Imagine crawling back 7 miles to pick coal on your side - 20¢! They had to rent their houses from the mine for $4 a month, so I can't imagine they really ever were able to have much.
This coal mine was closed in 1910, and is just a museum now.
Example of 1 ton of coal - they could produce about 4-5 tons of coal a day/per man.
This is where the superintendent of the mine lived. About 10x bigger and nicer than where the miners lived.
It was so gorgeous!!
The old school house.
We rode a little train into the mine.
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