Inclined plane, Mine #4, located in the #2 area (circa 1905)

The application for charter of the Heilwood Coal Company was presented to the Indiana County Notary Public on November 29, 1904. The shareholders and directors of the newly created company were all from Philadelphia: Fred R. Long, Stewart Frazer, Edmund Humphries, A. J. Rapp, and J. E. Wilkinson.

The amount of capital stock of the corporation was $25,000, and the newly created company was enrolled in the charter book on December 27, 1904 and recorded January 2, 1905.

As it turned out, the Heilwood Coal Company was short-lived. Four mines were reported in the 1905 Pennsylvania Department of Bituminous Annual Report, with an annual production of 23,511 tons of coal and 157 employees. The following year, 1906, John Heisley Weaver divested himself of his holdings in the tri-township area to the Penn Mary Coal Company. The April 18, 1906 issue of The Indiana Weekly Messinger noted that the interests were sold for $1.8 million dollars.

It should be noted that all of the mines in Heilwood were known as “captive mines.” This meant that the coal mines were owned or controlled by either a steel company or some type of industry that needed a continuous supply of coal at its plants in order to manufacture its product. In most cases the total coal production was shipped directly to the plants and very little, if any, would reach the open market.

THE POWER HOUSE

One of the first buildings that the W. G. Wilkins engineering firm of Pittsburgh built in the fall of 1904 was the central power plant.

Located southeast of the town, the building was of the vernacular-industrial style typical in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was rectangular-shaped with minimal ornamentation and numerous window openings, featuring arches and transoms over the windows. There were also ellipitical fans in the gables and a gabled clerestory (cupola-type structure on top of the roof - see the pictures at right).

The plant was coal-fired using high pressure steam to drive the turbo generators and produce electricity. This electricity was distributed to both the mines and the town. Another product of the plant was steam, which was utilized in the hoists that assisted the motors hauling loaded coal cars from the mine. Additionally, compressed air was also provided to the mines for the “punches.”

Adjacent to the power plant were several small builings, one of which housed a deep well pump that pumped water to the large tank supplying the town. The other small building was an “oil shed.”

It is quite possible that the insurance firm of Miller & Dumm of Barnesboro, Pa. wrote the first policy to insure the facility. The first non-mining fatality in Heilwood occurred during the construction of the power plant, when a carpenter from Nanty Glo fell 20 feet from a scaffolding and struck a generator below. He died the following day.

The Heilwood coal mine power plant, circa 1906

The Heilwood coal mine power house & machine shop, circa 1940