This is a basic community World War II Memorial for the former coal mining town of McCullough in Penn Township, Westmoreland County. According to the Virtual Coal Mining Museum Website (
visit link) , "he Westmoreland Coal Company opened the McCullough Mine in ca.1918. It was a shaft entry operation, 220 ft. deep, with an auxiliary 700 ft. slope entrance. Named after E.H. McCullough, fifth president of Westmoreland Coal Company, 1888-1910. The coal patch town of McCullough included a company store, two schools, and over 80 coal company owned houses.
Mr. Carpenter, the oldest member of the board of directors of Westmoreland Coal Company at the time, removed the first shovelful of earth from the mine shaft opening. The coal plant had a modern tipple, equipped with Marcus screens for the purpose of cleaning and classifying the output of the mine into various sizes of coal to meet the demand of the trade.
The shaft operation at McCullough Mine utilized a vertical system of elevators, or "cages", as they were termed in the industry. As one cage descended to the mine bottom carrying an empty car, the other cage with its loaded pit wagon was raised to the tipple level by a steel cable driven and operated from the engine house adjacent to the tipple. Cylindrical steel drums were used for the process of winding and unwinding the steel hoisting cable.
The McCullough Mine shaft operation differed from that at Penn Manor No. 1 Mine, only in respect to the refinement brought by technological progress. The mine shaft at McCullough was a three compartment opening eighteen feet wide and thirty feet long. Two compartment were used for hoisting coal, the other for venterlating the mine. The fan house was located immediatiately adjacent to the shaft. The McCullough Mine shaft itself was concrete lined. McCullough Mine employed a cylindrical drum of seven and nine foot diameters. The drum rotated at 61 revolutions per minute and gave a maximum cable speed of 1,700 feet per minute for hoisting coal to the tipple. In contrast to Penn Manor No. 1 Mine's use of steam power, McCullough Mine utilized electric power. The control operation was direct, using 220 volts. The brake for control of the drum was operated by compressed air. The power used to drive the hoisting machinery at McCullough was generated at the Biddle Mine at Westmoreland City, four miles away. The power was stepped up in transmission from the Biddle Mine and then down again at the McCullough Mine. An effective signal system covering the tipple, mine bottom, and the engine house governed the entire operation.
The tipple built at McCullough when the mine opened there in 1918 represented the acme in modern tipple construction.
The coal tipple was the place where the pit wagons were "tipped" or dumped. The dumped coal then passed down over a set of screens that regulated the various sizes of coal for themarket. Before being loaded into the railroad cars beneath the tipple, the coal was weighed by a company employee called the "weighboss" or "weighmaster". Generally, in local mines the coal was weighed after it was screened and had passed into a steel bucket. Through manual operation the bucket was then tipped and the coal emptied into the railroad car beneath. Later, at McCullough Mine the coal was weighted before it passed over a continuously moving shaker screen that deposited the various sizes of coal into the proper railroad hopper car below. During the final two decades of operation at McCullough Mine the newly unionized miners employed their own checkweighman to check the work of the coal company weighboss as the pit car loads were being weighed. The pay of the union checkweighman was derived from the miners pay through a "Check-off" levy collected by the coal company.
When McCullough Mine opened in February, 1918, a facility for stabling animals, the mine mules, was built within the mine. Only in time of mine idleness due to slack work or extended holiday periods were the animals brought to the surface via the slope entry to graze on the company farm pasturage adjoining the mine. In ca.1924 the Westmoreland Coal Company employed 24 mules to haul the coal from the working faces and rooms to the hoisting shaft of the McCullough Mine.
By ca.1925 the McCullough Mine employed 294 persons. That year its miners extracted 471,300 tons of coal. The daily capacity in 1925 was 2,000 tons of coal. The McCullough Mine had exhausted 48 acres of its coal reserve by ca.1915, and had 1845 acres of coal reserve left.
By 1940 the mine employed 400 workers, used two electric-battery locomotives, sixteen trolley locomotives running on a 40" track gauge, mechanical coal loaders, and eleven electric coal cutting machines, to mine over 410,000 tons of coal. The mine's preparation equipment included mechanical screens, picking tables, and loading booms. The mine reached its maximun production in 1942, when it produced more than 600,000 tons of coal, employing 424 miners, working 303 days. During its thirty-eight years of operation nineteen miners were killed in various mining accidents. In 1952 the Westmoreland Coal Company was pumping over thirty-one tons of water for each ton of coal produced; because of this situation the company operated the mine only three more years, abandoning it in 1955.
(History and description of the McCullough Mine, adapted from "Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites, 1994," America's Industrial Heitage Project, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, U.S. Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and "History of Penn Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania" by John W. Mochnick, 1982, Greensburg, PA: South Greensburg Printing Co. )
Only two red brick buildings, both in ruins, remained at the McCullough Mine (ca.1994). One building served as a powerhouse. It is a tall one-story building with common-bond red-brick walls, arched windows, a riveted steel roof truss, and a slate roof. It rests on a stone foundation. The second building may have served as a repair shop. It is similar in appearance to the powerhouse. Both buildings are abandoned, and no machinery is extant.
Note: ca. 1999- 2000 The mine buildings and slate dump of the McCullough Mine are being reclaimed, the site of the mine buildings and slate dump has been leveled and a shopping center and parking lot has been constructed on the site of the old mine. Work is continuing on this new construction in ca.2001.
The extant coal company structures, ca.1994, at coal company patch town of McCullough include the coal company store, school, and about seventy miners' houses. The store is a three-and-a-half-story wood-frame building with a full basement. The basement wall and foundation are coursed rubble stone and the original clapboard siding has been replaced with new aluminum siding. The building is privately owned and has been completely remodeled.
The remaining school building is a one-story stretcher-bond red-brick building with a full basement. It contains a flat roof, a brick chimney, and a recessed portico with emgraved stone proclaiming "TP, McCullough School." The building has been remodled with a new addition and new windows.
The residential buildings include single-family and double houses. The single-family houses are one-story and two-story wood-frame buildings with hipped roofs. The double houses are two-story wood-frame buildings with hipped roofs, brick chimneys, and hollow clay-tile foundations. Some have a modified L-plan."