The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-11-25
KENTUCKY COAL MINERS
ENJOY LIFE'S LUXURIES
CONDITIONS IN STRIKING CON-
TRAST WITH POPULAR
IMPRESSION.

If you want to see lavish living
the latest and richest styles, opulence
and anluence everywhere, you don't
have to go to Paris or Monte Carlo on
san Francisco or Atlantic City All
you need to do is take a trip to Ken
lucky, to the mountains where illit-
oracy, feuds and moonshining hold
sway and where coal mining is the
only modern industry So intimates
Tom Wallace. correspondent of the
Louisville, Ky. CONFECTIONERY after
visiting the mines at Lynch. When
il is known that Mr.. Wallace has Wis
tied nearly every civilized country,
and has seen and written about the
revelings of royalty in many climes,
the fact that he was so greatly i'm
pressed with the luxurious manner
of living enjoyed by the Kentucky
coal miners becomes all the more i'm
pressive. Hotel life de luxe 81
cigars and SIS silk stockings are all
in days work." Mr.. Wallace says.
The United States Coal & Coke
company is digging 5000 tons of coal
a day at Lynch. 1t is just now COM
plotting a tipple, the largest in the
world. also the finest, capable of han
ding 1900 tons daily. This is one
company's project. 1t is estimated
that the coal now in sight will furnish
10000 tons a day for 100 years. Just
what the coal operators are doing to
make certain of an adequate labor
supply for these hundred years is de-
scribed by Mr.. Wallace as follows:
Model Mining Camp.
Lynch exists to dig coking coal for
shipment to Gary and Joliet to be
cooked there for the use of the United
states Steel corporation. II does not
produce coal for the market. The
town of Lynch is considered by many
investigators the last word in model
mining camps.
ION the day of my arrival there
arrived in Lynch a group of represen-
tatives of great corporations who had
come here as students of the problem
of industrial relations to observe con-
ditions and make reports on them.
The interests they represented in
cluded Standard Oil and the Rookie
Teller mining enterprises I'm Colorado.
Two of the party came from San
Francisco Lynch is only three years
old, but it's fame has spread across
the continent.
GAS the train crawls along the up
grade from Benham toward the head
waters of Looney creek the locomo-
tive's labored breath reminds you
that you have heard that Lynch is the
highest center of population in the
Kentucky mountains The dining
room floor of the Lynch hotel is 1900
feet above sea level. and from the
front porch of the hotel is seen the
top of Black mountain five miles
away and 400 feet high. over the
crest of the mountain. which does not
seem three miles distant is Wise
county. Virginia. To this point al
most at the sources of one of the af-
fluents of the Cumberland river the
social theories of Judge Gary have
brought a striking example of an eff
fort 10 make the wage Garner entire
ly comfortable while paying him well
for his work
Luxury tor the Miner.
1.-THE Lynch hotel. which lodges You
as comfortably as a good New York
hotel. is so large that its reason for
existence is not at first apparent
When you learn that it is not a COM
mercial hotel. but is provided by the
company for the comfort and conven-
fence. Of its miners and other en-
ployes, your esurprise at it's size and
equipment increases rather than dim
inishes. A room with a bath, with a
reading light over the bed. with
clothes closet nearly as large as the
bathroom upsets your preconceived
notions of what a miner expects or
gets in even the most modern Of mod
el camps.
1T is necessary to go into the lobby
and see miners taking their ease at
their inn. in big leather chairs, or to
so out upon the front porch 100 feet
long. and see miners taking the after
noon air to realize that the place was
built. actually 10 house bachelor min
ers. or others who prefer hotel life to
housekeeping In this hotel a miner
may i've TOT 800 Il UlpuNir ROOM anu
meals. In the basement ne may pat
ronize barber shop or find a tailor
who will press and repair his clothes.
or he may play billiards.
Except YOU haven't a French
manicurist. said one Of the San Fran
cisco students Of Industrial relations.
you seem to have everything else in
this hotel that San Francisco offers |
or New York provides
''To call Lynch camp is to use the |
term under a broad definition. It viii /
be when completed a model mining |
town planned with a view TO appear /
ances as well as to comfort and con- /
venience for employees and economi- /
cal operation. The town viii be a |
little more than two miles long. situ-
ated in a narrow gorge with heavily
horested mountains rising abruptly
from each side The hotel will be the