After watching so many barges piled with coal heading up river toward Louisville, I had some questions. So when I found this museum on Google Maps and saw that it was nearby, we decided to give it a look.
It is a treasure. The man behind it walked out to greet us before we were even parked. Needless to say, he was excited to have visitors. He told us that they need 3 more this year and they will keep their funding so the first thing was to sign in.
After some photo ops with the controls that were once inside a huge piece of machinery that was used for surface mining, we started to learn some things. The museum is full of Mine Worker Union memorabilia, photos, and all sorts of tools that were used by miners over the generations. We found out that there have already been 11 coal mining deaths in 2022. That said, that number is way down because coal mining is fading fast. He predicted that the industry would only last about two more years.
The demise of the industry seems inevitable but still power plants that generate electricity are burning coal. He called out the power plant in southern Indiana that generates electricity for the state of Michigan as the reason for the barges that I saw.
There is a replica company store full of donated items. He showed us a ledger from the early 1900s with the pay records of coal miners. Many actually ended the week in debt because they were paid by the company but also lived in houses provided by the company. By the time they paid rent and bought their food at the company store, nothing was left. That made it very difficult to move on and find another, safer line of work.
There is even a display of the types of homes the miners had and the museum curator was adamant that the newspaper wallpaper had to stay (apparently there was a fire hazard concern from the inspector). But they covered it with a fire retardant and it has passed. But that was what the miners used as wallpaper. The curator comes from generations of coal miners so he knew.
Electric cars are greener even when some of the electricity comes from coal. But I would hope we would agree that the last day of burning coal needs to come soon. But let’s honor all of those who took on this dangerous work over the years. Loretta Lynn passed away on October 4th. Remember her words, Proud to be a coal miner’s daughter.