Winter Memories

We live in a three-year old house with a heat pump. If that seems like a strange thing to say it’s because in January, even here in the moderate mid-Atlantic states where it only snows occasionally, it’s cold. The heat pump is a marvelous thing that air conditions the house in summer and heats it in winter. I do nothing except change the filter every so often. There’s no dirt, no oil tank, no delivery truck with its sprawling black rubber hose, no pilot light to go out, no gurgling hot water pipes, no clanking radiators, and no coal bin in the basement. I just turn on the thermostat and the pump quietly, efficiently, and almost inexpensively does the job.

I marvel at such devices—not because I’m that old but because for some reason winter always reminds me of coal-fired furnaces. They’re childhood memories for me and perhaps for that reason not very accurate, but I remember the big furnace with its glowing fire, the heavy coal shovel, the galvanized ash tubs collected by the ash man, and the coal bin with its dark, dusty mountain of fuel. I remember my father shoveling coal, shaking the grate to filter out the ash, and banking the fire for the night. I remember standing on the floor heaters and feeling the hot air rise up my trouser legs before venturing out on cold winter mornings. I remember the slightly sickening odor of coal gas and the coal man coming to unload his coal down the chute into the basement bin.

Later in my childhood we moved to a house heated with natural gas. The new furnace seemed tiny and inadequate by comparison. The basement was clean and the mystery and power of that live, ever-consuming fire was gone. I’m sure though that my disappointment would have seemed silly to my parents who were understandably grateful to be free from the dirt and trouble connected with the coal furnace.

The Coal Industry
Coal is a sedimentary rock formed millions of years ago by layers of decomposed organic material that accumulated in swamps near sea level. Most coal deposits are 50 to 300 million years old. Under pressure from other layers of sedimentary rock deposited on top of this organic material, the decomposing plants turned first into peat and then to coal. As a result of the pressure, coal can be divided into four classes: lignite, sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, and anthracite.

Within the various classes of coal there are three grades—high, medium, and low—distinctions based upon the percentage of unwanted ash-producing material and sulfur the coal contains. The highest grade of coal will contain only two to five percent ash-producing material and one percent sulfur. As a result, high grade coal burns cleaner and produces less waste and less air pollution. Correspondingly, high grade coal is expensive and more difficult to obtain.

The coal that most of us are familiar with from home heating is anthracite— the hardest and purest form of coal. High in carbon and low in water, anthracite is jet black, requires a high heat to ignite, and burns with a clean, steady, blue, sootless flame. Although it was not equally available in all parts of the country and was always more expensive, anthracite was the favorite heating fuel in the days of the coal-fired furnace.

Coal was discovered in the U.S. as early as 1673 but production didn’t start until the 1720s. Coal was not widely used, however until after the 1830s when America’s railroads began their incredible expansion. Not only were the locomotives coal-fired, but the railroads provided a way of transporting huge amounts of coal for unimaginable distances at relatively affordable rates. The use of coal was also stimulated by the development of electricity. In the 1880s coal-fired steam turbines produced electricity for an ever-increasing number of Americans. By 1918 coal consumption in the U.S. had peaked and coal provided nearly all of our energy and heat.

Predictably, the coal industry in this country has had periods of expansion and contraction. The highest average price for coal in the early decades of the 20^th century was reached in 1920—$3.75 per short (2000 pounds) ton. This was its value at the mine—not the price that the retail customer would pay. In contrast, in 1931 during the Depression, the average value per ton dropped to $1.31.

As the years pass, the use of coal has dramatically declined. After World War II the railroads completed the switch from coal-fired steam engines to diesel locomotives. Similarly, with the increase in the use of natural gas and oil, and the pipelines necessary to transport these products great distances, the number of homes burning coal for fuel has nearly disappeared.

Postcards and Coal
Given the importance of coal in this century, it is not surprising that coal mining is extensively represented on postcards. Most of the cards connected with coal show mining or processing operations and things like “breaker boys at work” or “hauling coal from the mines.” Much less common are cards which depict the dangers that constantly surrounded the miner—the disasters, the cave-ins, the fires.