The Rockhill Iron & Coal Company
Historical Overview, 1870-1910
Historical Overview, 1870-1910
Historical Overview, 1870-1910
An illustrated essay on the merchant pig iron manufacturing company served by the EBTRR
The Rockhill Furnaces
Historical Overview, 1870-1910
Historical Overview, 1870-1910
An illustrated essay on the blast furnaces of RI&C and predecessors near Rockhill, PA
Company Towns
An 1870s Iron Making Primer
An 1870s Iron Making Primer
Illustrated essays on the company towns near the RI&C coal mines on the EBT
An 1870s Iron Making Primer
An 1870s Iron Making Primer
An 1870s Iron Making Primer
An illustrated essay on how pig iron was made in era of the RI&C.
Historical Overview
"Juniata Iron"
The phrase conjures images of flat-topped stone pyramids and 'ancient' stone ruins dotting the rural landscape of 21st-Century Central Pennsylvania, the remnants of a long-gone era. During the late-Eighteenth and early-Nineteenth centuries the Juniata region (encompassing the counties of Bedford, Blair, Huntingdon, and Mifflin) was an important part of Pennsylvania's iron industry, especially the foundries and rolling mills of Pittsburgh. By the mid-19 Century, according to historian Kenneth Warren, the water-powered charcoal iron furnaces and forges of the Juniata region produced 40% of the pig and wrought iron consumed by the foundries and rolling mills of Pittsburgh.
During the 1870s coke began to replace charcoal as the principal fuel for producing pig and wrought iron. Coke, which is a contraction of "coal cake," is a nearly pure-carbon fuel made by heating bituminous coal in an oxygen-poor environment. Its stronger load-bearing capacity enabled the construction of blast furnaces much larger than traditional charcoal blast furnaces. Furthermore, it could be made year-round and transported in bulk over large distances. All of these advantages over charcoal led to the rapid expansion of iron and steel making in Pittsburgh and other industrial cities in western Pennsylvania.
The discovery that bituminous coal from the isolated Broad Top coalfield in northern Bedford and southern Huntingdon counties produced high-quality coke gave rise to an iron-making district based on coke and still-plentiful iron ore n the Juniata region.
The Rockhill Iron & Coal Company ...
... grew out of the old charcoal iron industry near the Borough of Orbisonia and a new firm that hoped to develop its coal property in the Broad Top coalfield. Iron ore deposits under Blacklog Mountain, which extends from the Juniata River opposite Mifflintown southwest to Blacklog Creek near Orbisonia supported three sporadically operated charcoal iron furnaces near the latter place between 1785 and the 1840s. The most consistent of them was Rockhill Furnace, which went back into blast briefly during the Civil War. In 1867 Percival P. Dewees, a Philadelphia-based capitalist, bought and reconditioned the works. But for some reason (probably depletion of the old mines in the immediate vicinity) his enterprise suffered from lack of ore. Dewees discovered new ore deposits north of Three Springs, about six miles west of Orbisonia, but the difficult wagon-haul over unimproved roads was a costly problem.
Iron and Coal Interests Combine
Meanwhile a group of Dewees' fellow Philadelphians had gotten control of thousands of acres on the east side of the Broad Top coalfield, but they had yet to develop it. Realizing the potential for a successful modern blast furnace based on coking coal from the East Broad Top coalfield and Dewees' new sources of iron ore, the two groups joined forces to form the RI&C.
The RI&C partners revived an old railroad charter for the East Broad Top Railroad, which they built to connect their coal mines at Robertsdale to a new blast furnace complex across Blacklog Creek from the old charcoal furnace. The railroad would also ship their pig iron and excess coal to distant markets via a connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Mt. Union.
You can download "An 1870s Iron Making Primer" below to learn about how pig iron was manufactured by RI&C and its predecessors.
Between 1876 and 1893 RI&C was a completely self-sufficient merchant pig iron company, making pig iron for sale on the open market. The company built a 3-ft. gauge tram line from a junction with the EBT yard near the Rockhill station (renamed Orbisonia station in 1903) extending into Blacklog Narrows to serve the blast furnace, iron mines and limestone quarry. SEE Map at left.
In the mid-1880s the Shade Gap RR, chartered by several of the EBT's directors, built a narrow gauge line from the end of the RI&C tram at Blacklog station to Shade Gap. Between 1885 and 1890 the iron and coal company leased five iron mines in Shade Valley. The SGRR built the Shade Valley Branch north from Shade Gap station as far as the RI&C mine at Nancy, while the RI&C added an extension of its own from there to Richvale. Members of RI&C also built the Booher Branch Railway to tap an ore deposit southwest of Rockhill. The EBT operated all of these lines under lease agreements. The map shows the RI&C's tracks in red.
Company Towns
RI&C built three company towns to house its workers. Rockhill, which the company originally called "Cromwell," housed the managers and workers of the iron and coke complex as well as employees of the EBT. This site became the operating hub of the EBT. The new company town, which was situated on the opposite side of the EBT's Rockhill yard from the blast furnace and coke ovens, usurped the name of the "old" Rockhill Village that had grown up around the charcoal iron furnaces in Blacklog Narrows. In 1900 the census differentiated between the "old" and "new" Rockhills. But by 1910 "new" Rockhill was a newly chartered borough in its own right, and "old" Rockhill had essentially disappeared -- its remnants reduced to being the outskirts of Orbisonia.
RI&C built two company towns, Robertsdale (1873) and Woodvale (1891), at the south end of the EBT to house coal miners and their families. These are dealt with in two illustrated essays, with links at the top of this page.
You may also go directly there by clicking on the image, at left.
KEY
1 - RC&I Company Store (1874)
2 - EBTRR Depot (ca. 1917)
3 - Old Post Office (1915)
4 - RC&I Offices (ca. 1917)
5 - Reality Theater (1948)
6 - School (1934)
7 - Mule Stables site
8 - Rockhill No. 5 Boiler House ruins
9 - Fan House
Mine and tipple locations denoted by letters and covered in the text.
The "Company Square" ...
... was once the planned center of tourist operations should the EBT ever be restored along its entire length. It consisted of the EBT station, center background, the Post Office, left, the coal company office building, corner visible at right, and the coal company store. All but the store are still extant. Map ref. 1 - 4.
The EBT replaced its original Robertsdale station, a small wooden structure, with this rusticated block structure ca. 1917. The Kovalchick family, who currently own the EBT and coal company properties, sold it in the 1980s. The Friends of the EBT, a 501.c.3 nonprofit "dedicated to preserving and restoring the EBT," leased it from the new owner and restored its exterior and interior. FEBT now owns it. The station houses part of the FEBT's collection of RR artifacts.
On the opposite side of the tracks from the site of the Company Store stands the two-story rusticated block RI&C office building. Today, the Robertsdale Post Office occupies the ground floor. During the company's active years, however, the post office occupied the ground floor of the two-story rusticated block structure that stands across the street. Both the office building and the "old post office" date to approximately the same period as the EBT station.
The EBT installed a "wye" for turning locomotives at Robertsdale, and the tracks are still in place. The detail photo shows the wye rails curving around the northwest corner of the office building.
The post office was in the company store until the RI&C built the structure at right at about the same date as the office building. The post office occupied the western half of the ground floor, at right in this view, while a barber shop once occupied the east end. The second floor was the post master's residence. FEBT now owns it and recently finished restoring it to house its collection of artifacts and research materials.
At the center of town, the company built a large random stone structure in 1874 to house the Company Store. Long abandoned and steadily deteriorating, it was demolished in March, 1997 after being declared a public health hazard by the local government.
The Robertsdale Mines
KEY
A - Rockhill No. 1
B - Rockhill No. 1 Tipple site
C - Rockhill No. 5
D - Rockhill No. 5 Tipple site
E - Rockhill No. 3 site
F - Rockhill No. 4 site
G - Rockhill No. 2 site
In 1890 mine No. 5 (Map ref. C) replaced No. 3. Archaeological evidence and contemporary maps indicate that the company superimposed the tipple, shown at right, for mine No. 5 on the old tipple for mine No. 3 (Map ref. D). Rockhill No's 1 - 4 were drifts (following the coal seams from their outcrops on the surface) opened in the early 1870s.
In 1890 mine No. 5 (Map ref. C) replaced No. 3. Archaeological evidence and contemporary maps indicate that the company superimposed the tipple, shown at right, for mine No. 5 on the old tipple for mine No. 3 (Map ref. D). Rockhill No's 1 - 4 were drifts (following the coal seams from their outcrops on the surface) opened in the early 1870s.
RI&C operated a coal preparation plant at Robertsdale during the years that the Rockhill furnaces were in blast. The plant included a crusher and a sluice-type washer that processed clean, fine coal for the coke ovens at Rockhill. Archaeological evidence suggests that the plant was attached to the Rockhill No. 3, and later No. 5, tipple until the turn of the 19th Century. Mine No. 5 was a slope mine, which reached the seam below the surface from an inclined tunnel. The opening, at left, has been partially covered by the collapse of the retaining wall, at left, since this photo was taken in 1991.
From 1876 until the mid-1880s the company also made coke in "coke pits" at Robertsdale. The would have been similar to those shown at right. This technology preceded the familiar "beehive" ovens and was essentially the same process as that used in making charcoal. Although their life-span is unknown at the present time, it is possible that RI&C used the coke pits until the early 1880s when the company built beehive ovens at Rockhill to supplement -- and eventually replace -- the Belgian-style coke ovens it had originally built.
The sites of the coal preparation plant and the coke pits are not known precisely, but archaeological evidence suggests that they were in the general vicinity of mine No. 5. Traces of coke have been found in shallow depressions beside the EBT's tracks near the opening of mine No. 5. Other archaeological evidence suggests that the coal preparation plant was linked to the No. 3 tipple just south of the ruins of the later No. 5 tipple. It is clear that the area around (and under) the surface structures at the No. 5 tipple hides the secrets of the early decades of the RI&C's coal production at Robertsdale.
Robertsdale grew rapidly, from a few dwellings, a mule stable, and blacksmith shop in 1874, to 479 people and 27 houses in 1876. By 1880, there were 694 people in Robertsdale, with 119 households in 57 houses. By 1910, the number of families grew to 262, with an average family size of 5. Many mining families took in borders. The great majority of houses in the town were two-story duplexes, but white collar workers and some railroad employees occupied a few large, single-family dwellings. In 1948 RI&C began selling houses to the miners, who immediately began to improve them (the first improvements invariably being indoor plumbing). Over the years, the exteriors of many houses were altered based on the prosperity of the owners, and some duplexes were converted to single family dwellings. Nevertheless, the street plans of both towns -- indeed, even their demographics -- have changed little.
The town of Robertsdale and the remains of railroad and mine facilities nearby (such as the ventilation fan house pictured here) are a virtual time capsule of work and life in the Appalachian coal regions.
Sources:
Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania: 1875. Special Report on the Coke Manufacture of the Youghiogheny River Valley (1876). Collection of Drake Well Museum Library.
Interstate Commerce Commission Valuation Map of EBT (1917). Collection of FEBT.
Lee Rainey and Frank Kyper, East Broad Top (Golden West Books, 1984).
Lola M. Bennett, The Company Towns of Rockhill Iron and Coal Company: Robertsdale and Woodvale, Pennsylvania (U. S. Department of the Interior, 1990).
KEY
1 - Truck Dumps (ca.1941)
2 - Site of Mine Repair Shop
3 - Rockhill No. 6 Power House
4 - Site of Mule Barn
A - St. Michael's Church
B - St. Michael's Social Hall
C - Methodist Church
D - Woodvale Post Office
The Rockhill Iron & Coal Company (RI&C) established Woodvale in 1891, when it opened mine No. 6, its only vertical shaft mine. The mine was served by the 3-foot gauge East Broad Top Railroad, which extended its tracks to the mine head from the older coal company town of Robertsdale. During World War I, RI&C opened three drift (or slope) mines nearby. Rockhill No's 7 and 8 shared a common tipple at the end of a spur east of Woodvale, while Rockhill No. 9 was opened about a mile south of Woodvale at Alvan, which was simply a place name on the railroad. No. 6 was closed in 1925, but No's 7 and 8 operated until 1937
The overview of the No. 6 tipple and mine and support buildings, looking northeast, was probably taken during or shortly after World War I. The north end of the power house, below, still greets drivers-by as they enter the village. The power house supplied electricity to the new mines south of Woodvale, as well as for both company towns and the mines to the north.
The coal company built a red block repair shop (pictured below, left) across the road from the No. 6 mine head. Mine cars and other equipment were repaired in the small machine shop, which was a miniature example of the extensive belt-driven shop run by the EBT in Rockhill. This building stood abandoned for years, but finally succumbed to arson in 1993. It is pictured, below, as it appeared in 1990.
Mules provided the motive power in the underground galleries of Rockhill No. 6. They were stabled in a large wooden barn to the south of the mine head. This building (below) survived into the 1990s, used as a storage building by the furniture factory in the old power house. It, too, was lost to arson at the same time as the repair shop was burned.
Faced with acute manpower shortages in the rapidly expanding coal industry around the Turn of the Century, coal companies imported thousands of Eastern European immigrants and their families to work the new mines. Among the immigrants brought to Woodvale by the RI&C was a contingent of Carpatho-Russians. This community still thrives in its isolated mountaintop village.
