Reflections on a Century of change along the Mon
Today’s column by Glenn Tunney is the final installment of a three-part interview with longtime West Brownsville and Brownsville resident Harold “Chops” Laughery, who passed away recently at the age of 96. These columns first appeared in the Herald-Standard in January 2004.
About one hundred yards from the front door of Harold “Chops” Laughery’s Main Street home is one of five towering piers that support the western end of the Lane Bane high-level bridge.
Located on the West Brownsville side of the Monongahela River, these massive piers contain hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete . . . and a tiny bit of copper.
“I have a penny in each of those piers,” Harold Laughery joked during our recent conversation in his home. The bridge piers were constructed between 1958 and 1960, and Harold was a sidewalk supervisor who watched the 160-foot high pillars being built and occasionally threw in his two cents worth.
Well, not quite two cents.
“When they would take a bucket of cement to pour it into a pier, I would toss a penny in,” Harold smiled.
Since he was employed on a riverboat during those years, it was occasionally necessary for Harold to enlist the services of a relief pitcher to perform the coin-tossing ritual.
“If I was working on the river,” he revealed, “my father-in-law, who lived next door to me, would throw one in. So there’s a penny in every pier.”
Construction of the Lane-Bane bridge and the four-lane highway that hugs the West Brownsville hillside beneath it forever altered the appearance of this small Washington County community, nestled in the shadow of the hills along the Monongahela River. As is often the case with such a massive public works project, some folks lost their homes to the project.
“The project took 11 eleven houses across Main Street here,” said Harold, “because the hillside alongside the four-lane road wasn’t stable, and that caused sewer and water trouble in those houses. Those houses were taken after the bridge was already built. Only two houses on the river side of Main Street were taken to build the piers.
“West Brownsville used to be a busy town,” Harold continued. “For example, you had Lincoln Bakery, Stapleton’s Dairy, Potter-McCune, Herbertson’s Ford, Bakewell and Hartmann Dodge and Plymouth garage, Swift Meat Packing, several service stations, welding shops, a restaurant, several neighborhood grocery stores and about seven beer gardens. Some of those businesses were removed when they built the four-lane highway at the intersection of Bridge and Main Street.”
“There were quite a few businesses in this town in those days,” I agreed. “Didn’t you tell me there was a coal mine in town too?”
“Right over there,” Harold nodded, pointing in the direction of Main Street and the West Brownsville honor roll on the other side of the street. Just up the street from the honor roll is the West Brownsville borough building, which occupies the former Collins Service Station.
“The mine entrance was located in the hillside between the honor roll and the borough building,” Harold said.
“What was the name of the mine?” I asked.
“It was the Collins mine. I worked in that mine for less than a year before World War II. Old man Collins, Gus Collins’ dad, owned it.”
In 1950, to honor the 100th anniversary of West Brownsville Borough, a book called “A Century Of Progress” was published. It was written by a committee that included noted Brownsville historian and teacher Jesse Coldren. A few days after I spoke with Harold, I consulted that book and discovered some background information about the Collins mine.
“The Collins Coal Company,” the book explained, “was organized as a distributing agent for the Maxwell Coal Company in January, 1926, with one truck for the delivery of domestic coal. The Maxwell Coal Company went bankrupt in the crash of 1929 and the Collins Coal Company bought it out in 1930.
“This company,” the article continued, “continued delivering coal until 1936, when a truck and equipment were acquired to move household goods, which was the start of the E. W. Collins Transfer.”
On Jan. 3, 1948, E. W. Collins opened Collins Service Station not far from the former site of the Collins mine in which Harold had worked a decade earlier.
“H. J. Carter, Frankie Grosnack from Blainesburg, his dad, and I – they’re all gone except me – went into that mine with a mule,” Harold explained, describing his labors in the Collins mine during the 1930s. “We would walk in, just the four of us, at 11 o’clock each night. It was a slope mine, not a deep mine. We cut out all of the stumps of coal in that mine.”
“Cut out the stumps? Doesn’t that mean you were removing the pillars of coal that had been left behind to hold up the roof?” I asked. “That sounds risky.”
“It was,” Harold nodded. “We could hear the slate caving in from one night to the next.”
“How far into the hill did that mine go?”
“I don’t know the length. I do remember that it went in a little ways, then turned gradually upriver toward Krepps’ Knob.”
“How did you remove the coal from the mine?”
“We had a mule.” Harold chuckled as he thought about the stubborn animal. “He would pull 12 cars of coal, but he wouldn’t take the 13th. If that mule felt the weight of a 13th car, he would refuse to pull. He would pull 12 coal cars to the bottom of the entrance slope, then we would unhook him, and he would go on up to the stable by himself. We had a Mack truck engine on top of the tipple, and we would attach a cable to the coal cars and pull them up the slope to the mine entrance.”
“Where were the tipple and the stable located?”
“The tipple was right where the borough building is now,” Harold said. “The stable was where Gus Collins’ service station had its air pump, where you could put air in your tires. The entrance to the mine was just north of the honor roll.”
I noticed in the West Brownsville Centennial book that in 1943, the West Brownsville honor roll was built on a plot of land donated by Ed Collins.
“After the coal reached the tipple, was it then dropped from the tipple into a railroad car?” I asked, knowing that the railroad tracks ran adjacent to the site.
“No, it was dumped into trucks,” Harold said. “They sold house coal for home heating.”
“It is odd,” I said, “to think that there was a coal mine operating right in the center of West Brownsville.”
“There was another one!” Harold declared. “Champion Mine was right where the railroad tracks leave Main Street in lower West Brownsville. It was on the west side of the street, and it had a high tipple that went all the way to the river. I remember that the Hughes house sank one story into the ground because of the Champion Mine caving in. No one ever built on that spot; it is a vacant lot now. So there have been at least two mines in West Brownsville, plus Lilley Mine further down the river.”
“Harold, you live just a stone’s throw away from the old West Brownsville schoolhouse. That building has to be at least a century old, doesn’t it?”
“I think it may be the last school building from the old days that is still standing in West Brownsville or Brownsville,” Harold said. “Think about it. Second Ward School is gone. St. Clair School in Brownsville Township, both Front Street schools, Prospect Street School and the old Brownsville High School on High Street have all been torn down. Only the West Brownsville schoolhouse is still there.”
“I guess you’re right,” I agreed. “I can’t think of another old-time local school building still standing. I attended Blainesburg School, just up the hill from West Brownsville, and it was torn down years ago. I wonder how old the West Brownsville schoolhouse is?”
“I don’t know,” Harold answered, “but I can tell you that it is on that well-known 1883 panoramic drawing of West Brownsville, Brownsville and Bridgeport.”
Later, I consulted the 1950 West Brownsville Centennial book again, and there I found the answer to our question. “West Brownsville Grade School,” the book explained, “was built in 1870 at the cost of $6,000. It contained six classrooms and hall, also a cupola and bell. The original cupola is still on top of the building but hidden by the fire wall that is one of the many additions to our school. . . . Rooms have been added to our building and we now (1950) have eight classrooms, two large halls, principal’s office and a dental clinic.”
In recent years, the school building was the West Brownsville home of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). I said to Harold, “Is the schoolhouse used for anything now?”
“I understand that a fellow just bought the building from the VFW,” he replied, “and he is putting a new roof on it. I believe he plans to use it as a warehouse for the time being.”
Among other jobs that Harold Laughery has held in his lifetime, were those of riverboat captain and captain of the last remaining Monongahela River ferry boat, the Frederick, which connects East Millsboro with Fredericktown. It was with regret that we ended our conversation, knowing that there is plenty more to be discussed at another time. As we parted, I did so knowing that Harold Laughery is another treasure in our midst, with a memory teeming with stories of old West Brownsville and Brownsville.
Glenn Tunney’s popular books, “Looking back: The Best of Glenn Tunney (Volumes One and Two),” may be purchased at the Brownsville Free Public Library, the Fayette Chamber of Commerce (65 West Main St., Uniontown), or the Flatiron Building Heritage Center in Brownsville, or may be ordered for mail delivery by calling 724-562-8886. Price of each volume is $19.95.