Coal Miner's
Memorial
Anchor Coal Company is Remembered
By Phillip Fox
Have you ever either driven or walked up a long long hollow and as the bottom part becomes narrower and narrower you wind up with the end of the road and mountain all around you?
My first visit to the Anchor Black Coal Company camp left me with the impression that here was a small camp pretty much isolated from the rest of the world. It was composed of a small power house, a coal tipple with railroad cars underneath, the ? luxury and office located along side of the railroad tracks and became ? the hillside that were the houses of the miners and their families.
Anchor was the terminal of the Artemus Jellico Railroad Company passenger run, and a turntable was provided to turn the bus around to head back to Artemus. A 30 minute layover helped me to learn more about Anchor and the people who lived there.
I became acquainted with Mr J E Adair, who was the general manager of the company and Mr. Squire Clapp, who came occassionaly when Mr. Adair was absent.
One of the first persons I met and who later became a good friend was Fred ? who at that time was bookkeeper and store manager.
Other men I recall were miners Alex Smith, Mr. Mason, Mr. Browning, and ? Egnor "rabbit" Partin, Lon ?, Tom Jones, Drew ?, Kyle Williams, Joe Bennett and many more whose names escape me.
Several store managers were Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Payne, Mr. Henry Morgan and his son Ralph.
Mr. Henry Matlock also looked after the office, and his wife later ran the boarding house.
Some of the mine foremen were Mr. Lee ?, Mr. Jones, Kyle Williams and Bill Doyle. The camp's medical needs were taken care of in excellent manner by Dr. M. A. Fitzell, the camp doctor.
The Anchor Black Coal Co. produced an excellent grade of coal, loading about three to four cars a day. The coal was loaded in one ton cars and dropped off the hill by machine, four cards to a trip to the tipple, the loaded cards pulling the empty cars back up. Mr. Partin, who handled this and of the operations wwas quite perficent in his job.
This mine produced good tonage over the years that I knew about it, and as many a mine does, gradually ran out of acerage and finally had to close down.
At the time of the abandonment the mine equipment was owned by K C Land company and it became my duty to see to it that all the equipment, track, wires, motors and machines were taken off the hill and loaded into railroad cars for shipment. With good help and great managaement this was accompolished with a peroid of about eight weeks. Anchor would henceforth be just a memory, but a happy one.
The people who lived at Achor over the years wand who at times rode the passenger bus were fine people, and friends were made that were lasting. It is a sad time when a company has to shut down and jobs run out. However, Mr. Adair anticipated this and later took over another mine at ? in Bell County where many of the Anchor miners found new jobs with him there.
I hope the picture of the Anchor tipple and a picture of the camp as shown here will bring back some memories to those that worked and lived here in the 30's and early 40's.
Submitted by Jamie Ploskunak
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