Paul Begick, member of a noted Bay County coal mining family, displays Gene Gillette's new book on local coal mining. Gene Gillette Digs Into Bay County Coal Mines, Comes Up With Book
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There was a day when coal mining was a substantial source of employment and energy, as well as wealth, in Bay County.
Gene Gillette, retired school administrator and community activist with Bay City in Bloom, has produced a book about this now obscure topic.
An appreciative audience at the Bay County Historical Museum's Second Saturday series heard Mr. Gillette describe the rise and fall of coal mining and lined up to buy his book.
Gene Gillette Addresses Audience
Researching coal for a possible class to be offered at Saginaw Valley State University, and interviewing oldtimers who had been involved with the industry, Mr. Gillette soon realized he had enough material for a book.
"Coal gives quite a sense of time since it was formed 200 to 300 million years ago," he said. By contrast, Michigan was shaped by glaciers that moved through "only" about 10,000 years ago. "Just a blink in terms of history," he observed.
In order for coal to exist here, Michigan at one time must have had a tropical climate, the author observed. Layers of swampy, boggy trees, ferns and bushes first became peat and then eventually coal.
Core samples drilled in Merritt Township reveal several layers of coal, while other more coal rich regions like West Virginia and Wyoming have up to 140 layers, Mr. Gillette said.
State geologist Douglas Houghton about 1838 did approximately 5,000 borings, finding coal veins in the mid-Michigan area centered in the Saginaw Valley.
"There was no need for coal then because we had plenty of wood," he said, "but when the trees were mostly all cut, about 1875, interest in coal was aroused.
Ira Bennett, a former miner from Pennsylvania, found coal in the sand hills near the Rifle River in Arenac County. That was where a young Gene Gillette, growing up in Standish, discovered the boarded up entrance to the Pinnacle Hill mine.
The Sovereign brothers, later to found the Aladdin Company, ready-cut home manufacturers, tapped a six foot deep vein and began the Eureka Coal Company. That business soon languished and died because the Michigan Central Railroad could not be convinced to run a spur so the 300 tons a day being produced could be shipped, the author said.
Alex Zagelmayer, manufacturer of machines that made building blocks, hit coal while digging a water well in 1896 and the Monitor Mine was born. That was the first of several dozen mines in Bay County, including the Bay Mine, Wenona Beach Mine, Handy Brothers Mine, the What Cheer Mine in Munger and the largest, Beaver Mine operated by the Hecla Cement and Coal Co., in Frankenlust Township near the Bay Valley resort.
"Hundreds of miles of tunnels were located under Bay County: Where are they now?" he asked. Probably filled with water, sand or dirt, he said. A mine on North Union Street in Bay City was open until 1995.
The Begick family of Frankenlust Township was involved in promoting the last mine here, the New Monitor Mine, a very profitable venture on Two Mile Road started in 1947.
Gene Gillette Signs Books
Digging with picks in underground "rooms" sometimes as low as two feet high, miners dug as much as they could with picks, chain saws and punching machines. When these weren't enough, they drilled holes for black powder or dynamite. "Then they set it on fire and ran like hell!" he exclaimed.
Coal was sorted at the tipple at the mouth of the mine and rail cars or horse drawn wagons hauled it to market. The Robert Gage Company of Jackson, Michigan, is still recalled by many local residents as one of the biggest retailers of coal for home furnaces.
Veins of coal here proved too thin and the cost of extraction by pick mining too high and local coal mines were made obsolete by huge strip mining operations in Kentucky, West Virginia and out West, he said.
Slag piles still remain scattered about but the tipples, iron cars and mules used in the local mines are history.
"We should remember coal mining since it was a romantic time and a bit endearing," Mr. Gillette concluded.###
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