The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1895-03-07
THE CONNELLSyILLE COKE REGION.

In southwestern Pennsylvania is
wild district which has been given over
to the turbulent Slav. The Connells-
vile coke region produces more coke
and more strikes than any district in
the world. At night the traveller along
the Youghiogheny. sees the sky lighted
up for miles with the fires of furnaces
and his car runs a gauntlet of red-hot
ovens smoking right above the, tracks.
The signs in front Of the taverns and
shops at the rude towns along the way
bear names which recall the old empire
of the, Czechs; the dark, sparsely
bearded faces at the stations are Hun
nish in their crude outlines; the miner
who sits behind you in the day coach
croons to the sleeping child in his arms
an odd. monotonous lullaby with
strange words that might have come
with the shepherd kings out of the re-
cesses of Tartary. 1t is the last invas-
ion of the Huns.
The cookers are working to-day, but
tomorrow an outburst may set the
whole district humming like hive.
For year at intervals the restless
Huns have been marching up and down
the country from Connellsville to
Uniontown, calling out their men,
tearing down ovens, burning coal tip
pies and attacking their bosses with
clubs and knives
Their women melted them to desper-
alton, in one instance themselves muir.
dered a recalcitrant striker and in an
other charged in struggling column
upon coke plant and were only halted
when three of their number vert
dropped dead with Winchesters. More
than once in 1894 military law wa
contemplated, and an outbreak to-da,
would turn the whole district into al
armed camp. Thousands of stands o
rifles within the year have beef
shipped to the operators from the New
England gun factories.
When the bulk of the miners wa
American or Irish, there were murder
Gus riots, so ten years ago the operator
supplanted the natives with Slavs, onl
to find that the strikes were more fire
quent and fierce than before. Las
summer carloads of Negroes wer
shipped North from the idle Birming
ham coal fields, but many were afrai
of the vengeance of the striking Huns
Some, however, are now at work
There were STRINGS among the locked
out Slavs; some emigrated to Kansas
some went up to the Mesaba range,
number abandoned their homes an
turned their faces again toward Europe
Despite the periodical strikes tt
output of the district has grown
tifty-thr years from two ovens to 20
900 with yearly capacity of 5000, 0(
tons. 1t requires 100000 gallons
water day to cool down the burni1
coke SO that it may be loaded upon Il
freight cars.
The chief demand for the coke com
from the foundries and blast furnace
although in a crushed form it is US
by housekeepers. 1t is practically t
charcoal of coal and it is prepared in
- simple way. The coal is mined ne
- by and carried in small trans drawn
~ mules to the ovens, which are bu
~ along and above the railroad tracks.
III In these ovens, which are about
III feet in diameter and feet high, t
III coal is roasted for forty eight hou
s All openings are bricked up, the ov
"a heat sets the coal afire on top and
- draughts are so regulated that
coal burns from out to in. The &C
comes out hard, gray and porous, W
the an almost metallic ring and luster.