U. S. Coal & Coke Company/U. S. Steel No.10 mine history: By Buddy French
The U. S. Coal & Coke Company opened its Gary No.10 mine at its Venus community and into the world-famous Pocahontas number three coal seam in 1907. The original coal lease consisted of 2,452 acres in the number three seam and 951 acres in the number four coal seam. The "Main Heading" section in the Gary No.10 west mine was driven in a northerly direction from its mine portal. Circa 1913, a mine section referred to in an early mine map as "5 Flat Right", turned to the right and eastward. It was driven through the coal seam approximately one mile to where its portal exited the hillside a short distance above the last house in the Gary No.11 community named Turnhole. After crossing the hollow, the No.10 mine entered into the number four coal seam on the adjacent hillside that was approximately seventy-five feet above the number three seam, and this became the No.10 East mine. The 951 acres in the number four coal seam East mine, encompassed the mountain opposite from the Gary No.4 mine at Thorpe in Harmon Branch Hollow.
The following mine section names are supposition based on studies of early Gary No.10 mine maps. By the 1930's, U. S. Coal & Coke had made the decision to extend its No.10 West mine from Venus, further westward and to have an exit portal at Alpheus, where the No.2 and No.1 mines were located. Plans were being made to build a new Coal Preparation Plant at Alpheus, where the No.1, No.2 and No.10 mines could all dump their coal through a new coal processing plant. According to a No.10 mine map, a new section turned off the No.10 "Main Haulage" section at Venus and it was given the name "Haulage Left". That section was driven underneath the number four coal seam that was being mined by the Gary No.3 mine in Adkins Branch Hollow at Gary. After that heading was driven approximately three quarters of mile, it turned left at a forty-five-degree angle and into a new mine section that was given the name "Tug River Mains".
When the No.10 mine turned westward toward Alpheus from its Venus location, the coal seam followed a fairly steep downhill trajectory. By 1941, the No.10 "Tug River Mains" section reached Alpheus but the number three coal seam had dipped below the valley floor and Tug River at that location. The problem encountered with opening the No.10 mine portal at Alpheus was solved by drilling a six hundred feet long tunnel, sloping upward through solid rock. It exited the hillside about twenty-five feet above Tug river. Coal from the No.10 West mine was then dumped into a new rotary dump facility at Alpheus and fed onto a conveyor belt line that moved coal over to a railroad loadout. The No. 10 East mine continued dumping its coal through the original tipple at Venus. The peak employment in the No.10 mine was reached in 1942 with 673 employees. After the end of World War II in 1945, U. S. Coal & Coke decided to shut down its antiquated No.10 tipple at Venus and began dumping all of its coal at its Alpheus location. In 1948, coal from the No.10 and No.2 mine began dumping their coal into the newly constructed and largest Coal Preparation Plant in the world at Alpheus. It became locally known simply as the Cleaning Plant. Plans were made to dump coal from the old No.1 mine that had been shut down in 1912 and its coal would be brought out through Hood Portal at Alpheus and would also be dumped through the Cleaning Plant. The Gary No.10 mine opened in 1907 and was operated by U. S. Coal & Coke Company until 1955 when its charter was dissolved and its parent company, United States Steel Corporation, took over all mining operations in Gary Hollow. The No.10 mine was permanently shut down in 1984.
Interview with Rudy Kelly
In July 2007, I spoke with eighty-seven-year-old, Mr. Rudy Kelly who was born at Venus in 1920 and grew up there. He said he went to work in the original No.10 mine sometime in the late 1930's. He wasn't sure of the year, but said he worked in the Gary No.10 mine for all of the 42 years he was employed at Gary. Mr. Kelly recalled when he first started working at the No.10 mine. There was a substation building, fan house, mine portal and a car shop where they built and or repaired the wooden mine cars and the tipple. He said that up until the time the No.10 tipple was torn down after the war, the No.10 mine portal was only used to pull trips of loaded mine cars from the mine. He stated that in his earlier years working there, all the mantrips entered the No.10 mine in Turnhole Hollow. The portal on the right entered the East mine and the one on the left entered the West mine.
Mr. Kelly said when they shut down the original No.10 tipple, he helped drive the heading toward Alpheus and they had to drill a slope up through solid rock. The new No.10 mine portal came out of the hillside just above the river and below the highway. All of the No.10 mine at that location was in the number three coal seam. He said there were places where the coal reached fourteen feet high, but there was a two-foot thick "middle man." He said they would mine the coal out above the middle man (rock) and shoot the rock with dynamite and load it out, then mine the coal below the middle man.
