What was coke used for

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These drugs can have other unpredictable effects, too. The building of beehive coke ovens continued at Adrian until a total of was reached.

Shortly thereafter, a coke crusher was erected near the lower end of the western row of ovens. The addition of the crushing facility produced a higher price on the market.

A visitor to the area during that a time, although impressed with the area ton-s-per-day capacity of the crusher, noted, presumably with enthusiasm, "this will soon be a very smoke city. In December , yet, another string of coke ovens appeared on the landscape of Jefferson County, this time at Eleanora, named in honor of the wife of Adrian Iselin, Sr.

Construction of the 80 houses for the new community began in February , and by the end of the next year, they were fully occupied. Within months, the ovens at the Eleanora were producing , tons of coke annually. This tonnage, combined with that of Walston and Adrian, found a ready market in the developing iron and steel industry along he Great Lakes.

Coke from Jefferson Country was particularly suited to foundry use, and markets for it extended as far west as the Mississippi River. Still more shipments traveled, by rails, as far as Chicago. Within a few years, Big Soldier was known as the largest soft coal mine in the world, and photographs of the plant were featured in many turn-of-the-century schoolbooks. The coking plant at Soldier consisted of ovens, some dating to and at that time supplied with coking coal by Old Soldier mine, which was abandoned before During , 19, tons of coke were make at Soldier and shipped on the Reynoldsville and Falls Creek Railroad.

Lucia Christy, who spent most of her life in Rossiter and now lives in Punxsutawney, remembers the town and plant at Soldier as it appeared before World War I.

I was six years old when I came. We were 15 family units that left at the same time. We left at the beginning of November and were 18 days on the sea. The men read my mother's letters to determine where my father was. Then they gave us a package of food and put us on a train. At one point, they moved us into a boxcar where there was no water or any seats. We finally arrived at Reynoldsville on Nov. That will be 80 years ago this month.

Christy remembers the first time she saw the coke ovens at Big Soldier. Christy also recalls an incident involving the coke workers at Big Soldier "When the United Mine Workers was first being organized, the coke workers didn't join at first. So one time a group of miners with pots and pans hid on the hill behind the ovens.

When the coke workers started to pull the coke, the men in the woods started shouting and banging on the pots and pans. The coke pullers were so terrified that they ran away and left the coke in the ovens.

The company town at Big Soldier, called simply Soldier, was notable for the large number of privately owned stores located off company property. Among them were Joseph Patrella's grocery store, Joe Marinaro's grocery store, Nick Marinaro's butcher shop, Julia Abelman's clothing store, Carl Mascaro's shoe repair and barbershop, the Katzen shoe store, and Sam Katzan's watch repair shop.

Carmen Marinaro, brother of the two storekeepers, was a notary public, and acted as banker a postmaster for the Italian families nearby. Andrew Goulish, who still lives in Soldier, remembers the coke ovens there quite well, "I was thirteen years old when I went to work at the coke plant," he says. We called it 'lume. They would even climb up on top of the ovens to heat their soup, but, more often, people from Soldier would feel sorry for them and send down what food could be spared.

By the end of the 19 th century, although the ovens of Jefferson County had a large capacity and high-grade product, investors began to envision eventual marketing problems from their coke production. Connellsville, the counties chief competitor, enjoyed the advantage of closer proximity to Pittsburgh, and still other coke companies began experimentations with machine- drawn ovens and with byproduct ovens in which coke oven gases are recovered and converted to usable substances.

As Jefferson Country coke was suitable for blast furnace use, these two facilities created outlets for a high percentage of locally-produced coke.

The first blast, or pig iron furnace opened in and operated under the name Punxsutaweny Furnace. This furnace had a daily capacity of tons of pig iron and had in its stockpile , tons of iron ore brought from the Lake Superior region. The plant sold most of its pig iron locally; the DuBois Iron Works, the Mahoning Foundry and the Punxsutawney Foundry were among the firm's best customers. This was done "in order to purchase a certain tract of land situated in Sandy Township in Clearfield County near DuBois: 75 acres By , however, they had become obsolete; the furnaces were scrapped and the companies were liquidated.

Due primarily to the construction of the blast furnaces, Jefferson County coke production continued to rise during the first decade of the 20 th century. One year later, the fledgling company sold out to a group of New York investors who changed the name to the Cascade Coal and Coke Co.

At that time, under the direction of C. Gadd, coke ovens were built. Two years later, a local paper noted that "they are working regularly at the Cascade mines. A good grade of coke is being make there, and business is brisk.

Gradually, until an all-time low production rate was reached in the early s, the beehive ovens of Jefferson County began to cool. But before the glow of the beehives disappeared forever from the skies of Jefferson County, one last attempt was made to produce coke in the area.

Ed Murphy, who operates a service station south of Sykesville, recalls, "The ovens here at Cascade Coal and Coke were shut down before World War II, and no coke was made here after that except once, in At that time, some fellows wanted to see if coke could be made again, so they repaired four old ovens with new firebrick, and converted them so that they could be machine-drawn.

But there were union problems, and marketing problems, and they gave up and shut them down. That was the last coke ever make in Jefferson County. About a decade before the turn of the century, the development of Jefferson County coal mining combined with a burgeoning steel industry to send a steady stream of coke pouring into railroad cars destined for markets as far away as New England.

That year, George Mikesell, a successful farmer, decided to expand his local coal business by building 12 beehive coke ovens on his land nine miles from Indiana.

Once completed, the tiny battery of ovens were charged with coal, and in the summer of , the first coke made in Indiana County was pulled on Mikesell's property.

Later, additional coal to supply the ovens was leased from small mines at nearby Reed. An initial load of coke, sold to the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, proved satisfactory, and soon the plot of ground on which the ovens sat had a name; the little plant and the surrounding area became appropriately known as "Mikesell Station. Encouraged by his early success, George Mikesell slowly acquired an increasing number of customers.

But after only a year in the coke business, limited capital forced him to sell his ovens to J. Guthrie, Jacob Graff, and G. Kirkland, who constructed an additional 37 beehives on the site.

In , ownership of Indiana County's first coke ovens changed again. That year, Guthrie, Graff and Kirkland, having tried their hands at the coke business, sold their interests to a firm composed of J. Under the direction of the new owners, George Mikesell's original string of 12 ovens was enlarged to 15 and "Plant No. Eventually, the number of ovens totalled At the same time, the town of Graceton came into existence to house the coal and coke workers who came to work at the mines and ovens.

Harry McCreary, although not yet 30 years old at the time of his venture into Indiana County coke production, was no stranger to beehive ovens. After completing a course of study at the Utica New York Business College, young McCreary secured a position as secretary and manager of the properties of J.

Moore, a successful Connellsville coke operator. During those years, J. Moore and his brother owned a large coke plant near Uniontown. In , Moore began the development of his coking coal lands in Westmoreland County. At that site, Harry McCreary was given the responsibility of construction of ovens at two plants known as Mamouth No. During the building, young McCreary became familiar with all aspects of the coke industry. In , J.

Moore sold his Westmoreland coke facilities to the formidable Henry Clay Frick. Therefore, after the sale, Frick asked McCreary to remain as manager of the plants, and offered an increased salary. Having completed six months in that capacity, however, young Harry decided to join J.

Moore, his former employer, as a full partner in the McCreary Coke Company. At Graceton, serious problems claimed the attention of the new owners. Graceton coal contained a higher percentage of impurities than that of its competitors in the Connellsville region. For the first few months, McCreary made coke with coal just as it came from the mines at Graceton, but the resulting product was less than satisfactory. In , after several experiments, McCreary adapted plans for a coal washing plant which cleaned the coal of much of its slate and pyrites before being charged into the ovens.

The washing system gave dramatic results, and within a short time, advertising circulars billed Graceton coke as lithe best in the world. But " And the only way he could get to Graceton from Indiana, a nine-mile trip, was to take a train early in the morning and come back on the train late in the evening. She was a good sport and went along with it. I was born in a house at Graceton. In , we moved back to Indiana.

The ovens were developed into banks rows of joining cubicles. During the heating process of the coal, tar, gas, and other byproducts are lost. Coke oven gas: The mixture of permanent gases produced by the carbonization of coal in a coke oven at temperatures in excess of 1, degrees Celsius.

Coke plants: Plants where coal is carbonized for the manufacture of coke in slot or beehive ovens. This page has no sub-navigation. Skip to page content. Search glossary terms:.