My father was a PA coal miner during WWI and owned a mine until the great depression. He described the room and pillar mining process he used as leaving a significant % of the coal behind as pillars to hold up the rock above and he only mined seams thick enough for a horse, or later an electric engine with driver, to have head clearance to pull ore carts out on rails. He never removed rock from a mine to create a deeper channel for a track with headroom, like you followed nor made such enormous rooms. And he never used many support posts - whose length matches the thickness of the coal seam - to support the overburden. This mine has a much thinner coal seam - tapering thinner the farther you went - and probably less overburden, or the wood posts would be inadequate support. Its distant coal pillars are also minuscule. So it seems to have operated where/when thick coal seams were no longer available and miners were forced to work significantly poorer seams under more terrible conditions, including dragging coal by hand significant distances to the ore cart channels dug into the rock below the coal. I would think the miners had to be desperate to work under those conditions, particularly without clear tunnels to channel air flow for dust removal from rock blasting. I'm not surprised to see roof collapses at the farthest distances in, where the seam thickness diminished. The amount of coal to be gotten from farther in may not have justified providing as many posts to protect access to those less valuable areas. Just mine it w/o posts; hope for no collapse for a few days; and get out. I certainly did not see any posts even adequate to support rock slabs only a foot or two thick where they had fallen. It was a harder, dirtier life than my father experienced. He had left so much coal in the ground as safety pillars that decades later the area was strip mined. The remains in this mine aren't worth such effort, but miners surely suffered here.
The dude that was in charge of setting those timbers really knew his business. What sweet well preserved workings ! Thanks for dragging yourself through the dirt so everyone has the opportunity to experience this beauty bro. 👍👍 .
I can assure you that drinking milk to cancel the toxicity of welding fumes was a myth they were told giving them a false sense of security. Everybody who worked at these mines made an age-old bargain with the Earth that is still true today: bodies for energy. The Earth gives up energy but every now and then it claws back and takes a few bodies as payment. Doesn't matter if it's a coal mine or oil rigs. The few times I've been in a coal mine I've conclude the same thing: in my life I never put in a hard day's work comparable to what these men did on a daily basis.
Foremost dairy was founded in 1931 by none other than j c penney. By 1952 it was the fourth largest dairy in the u.s. and operated over 23 states. Finally closed down in Wi just last year. Great video
When you go down into these mines are you testing the air for methane? There's also two types of gas that they were concerned about. They were referred to as black dampf and white dampf. I believe one was methane and the other simply displaced the oxygen so those encountering it would suffocate without warning. To eliminate that they used to ventilate the mines. As the mines are no longer working there's no ventilation drawing in fresh air so a real concern. Also the timbers? Don't be given a false sense of security by the presence of timbers. They were nothing but an early warning device. If the Earth was to cave-in the timbers would not prevent the cave-in. The miners had a saying, "when the props start talking we start walking". Meaning that the Timbers would start to make a squeeking noise which was a warning that the timber was compressing and a collapse was imminent.
Reminds me of two things: Shelob's Lair from LOTR. Also, the scene from Ben-Hur where he's crawling inside the leper colony caves looking for his mum and sister.
not only we can see across the mine with his light now but the guys working there only can see the next person if they had lights i guess the darker it is the more claustrophobic ,stay safe
I've never been in a coal mine before. I feel like the roof hangs lower than a gold/silver mine. Do they? I used to explore old abandoned mines with my parents. We spent out summers in Ouray, CO. It's an old gold mining town. You can basically stand upright in those.
Damn bro I got a lot of respect for you again thank you for risking your ass to bring us this awesome footage my body is broken so I wish I can do it you are doing but it's all good but then yet there's not enough cocaine and morphine in the world that particular stoked out area I used to spend a lot of time in the swamp down here in South Florida I have dealt with insects and Gators that would kill you in a heartbeat and again that's probably not enough money in this world to get me down that nightmare stoked out are you thank you so much man watching your videos to helps me stay sober besides my medications I have to take don't want to it sucks my body is not good my mind is not either but LOL who's is in these days back on track thank you bud I'll be recommending your videos to everybody I know yes I will start hitting likes for you🎉😅
Cool mine! I always wonder where the equipment went when they shut down? Did they strip the mines afterwards? If I remember right, they had a crawler that the operator could sit and recline in to fit those narrow seams of coal, and not wear out the knees of their trousers. Sad that it is all gone, but the holes.
I found an opening that might lead to the hospital this guy was telling me about .But it's all blocked with steal.U can feel the cold air coming out of it though.
in the UK all mines had to submit abandonment plans to the govement so other mines could not accidentaly break into old workings are there mine plans for all these mines you go in or did they not record where they had taken the coal out, technicaly you would know which mine you you were in from the plans and know the extent of the workings, i know Kentucky recorded the mine plans but did Pensilvania...because most of the mines you go in look suspisiously bootleg to me...i could be wrong.
What lies on the ground above this mines? I think the day the logs are too rotten to hold up the roof. A collapse will create distortions in the terrain like an earthquake, if Pennsylvania is a Swiss cheese. Hope it's not a city.
@@AmazingPennsylvania there used to be a brick building right off main st in Taylor there where there’s now a resi. Idk if they filled all that in back there or not
There is way too much heavy metal garbage laying around inside the mine that would drive even the best most advanced metal detector crazy... cans, cables , shovels, bolts, nuts , nails , sheet metal, you name it.... but I don't doubt that there would be coins too to be found that fell out of the miners pockets due to the way they had to crawl and navigate the workings. Bettter luck and more finds will be had searching the path of travel the miners took to get to the entrance of the mine day in and day out. 👍
@@Rockaland2 I'm confident there would be a few excellent targets to be found , but as Anthracite Horror Stories mentioned , and I agree you would literally be overwhelmed with false signals and terrible frustration would set in fast ... especially having a lot of fallen solid stone and stone debris to deal with on the floor while trying to dig and uncover your target.
I’m sure you get this all the time phill but I would love to join you and I weigh 105 pounds I can fit through holes that you couldn’t imagine and I’m not afraid to do it.
Those Men And They We're Real Men Worked for Day's And Months And Year's To Feed Your Family! You Could Be a Simple Uneducated Person or A Educated Fellow Who had to Feed His Family! Yes If You Needed to Feed your Family you Worked in Hell and Hoped you Weren't Killed!
My father was a PA coal miner during WWI and owned a mine until the great depression. He described the room and pillar mining process he used as leaving a significant % of the coal behind as pillars to hold up the rock above and he only mined seams thick enough for a horse, or later an electric engine with driver, to have head clearance to pull ore carts out on rails. He never removed rock from a mine to create a deeper channel for a track with headroom, like you followed nor made such enormous rooms. And he never used many support posts - whose length matches the thickness of the coal seam - to support the overburden. This mine has a much thinner coal seam - tapering thinner the farther you went - and probably less overburden, or the wood posts would be inadequate support. Its distant coal pillars are also minuscule. So it seems to have operated where/when thick coal seams were no longer available and miners were forced to work significantly poorer seams under more terrible conditions, including dragging coal by hand significant distances to the ore cart channels dug into the rock below the coal. I would think the miners had to be desperate to work under those conditions, particularly without clear tunnels to channel air flow for dust removal from rock blasting. I'm not surprised to see roof collapses at the farthest distances in, where the seam thickness diminished. The amount of coal to be gotten from farther in may not have justified providing as many posts to protect access to those less valuable areas. Just mine it w/o posts; hope for no collapse for a few days; and get out. I certainly did not see any posts even adequate to support rock slabs only a foot or two thick where they had fallen. It was a harder, dirtier life than my father experienced. He had left so much coal in the ground as safety pillars that decades later the area was strip mined. The remains in this mine aren't worth such effort, but miners surely suffered here.
The dude that was in charge of setting those timbers really knew his business. What sweet well preserved workings ! Thanks for dragging yourself through the dirt so everyone has the opportunity to experience this beauty bro. 👍👍
.
The part at the end... I actually crawled all the way through that working. Ended up in a parallel drift that hasn't been touched since it closed!
@@AmazingPennsylvania OUTSTANDING ❗ How far was it till you hit the drift ?
@@milemarker_oscar_mike Maybe only 100 feet... but it was a very tight crawl. I'm sure I'll make a video of it
Welders used to be supplied milk to somehow neutralized toxic gases emitted from the welding process.
Thanks for the video!
I can assure you that drinking milk to cancel the toxicity of welding fumes was a myth they were told giving them a false sense of security. Everybody who worked at these mines made an age-old bargain with the Earth that is still true today: bodies for energy. The Earth gives up energy but every now and then it claws back and takes a few bodies as payment. Doesn't matter if it's a coal mine or oil rigs. The few times I've been in a coal mine I've conclude the same thing: in my life I never put in a hard day's work comparable to what these men did on a daily basis.
Foremost dairy was founded in 1931 by none other than j c penney. By 1952 it was the fourth largest dairy in the u.s. and operated over 23 states. Finally closed down in Wi just last year. Great video
Thanks for that info!
Good Lord kid,that made me want to stop watching when I saw that collapsed ceiling...My nerves are shot! lol
When you go down into these mines are you testing the air for methane? There's also two types of gas that they were concerned about. They were referred to as black dampf and white dampf. I believe one was methane and the other simply displaced the oxygen so those encountering it would suffocate without warning. To eliminate that they used to ventilate the mines. As the mines are no longer working there's no ventilation drawing in fresh air so a real concern. Also the timbers? Don't be given a false sense of security by the presence of timbers. They were nothing but an early warning device. If the Earth was to cave-in the timbers would not prevent the cave-in. The miners had a saying, "when the props start talking we start walking". Meaning that the Timbers would start to make a squeeking noise which was a warning that the timber was compressing and a collapse was imminent.
Your either brave AF or crazy! but either way you have my respect. This place is scary and I can't help but think there's other things down there lol
Reminds me of two things: Shelob's Lair from LOTR. Also, the scene from Ben-Hur where he's crawling inside the leper colony caves looking for his mum and sister.
The amount of Woodlawn, Blue Ribbon and especially Grablicks bottles I've come across is almost weird. You almost lose excitement when finding them.
I like finding Blue Ribbon because they're still in business today
Those bottles where staged so neatly down there..makes me wonder :)
Alice in Wonderland's Rabbit Hole has nothing when compared to Amazing Pennsylvania's, for sure!
No clue how your ba11s fit through those tight crevices! You my friend must have a large set! All the best and be safe!
Haha thanks brother!
I am amazed at everything you film. Thank you for sharing❤
Dang, that was some sketch looking crawls there lol. That's insane to think people were slowly army crawling and chipping away at coal.
I live in the Scranton area love watching your channel but dang I get knots in my stomach just watching you going underground
not only we can see across the mine with his light now but the guys working there only can see the next person if they had lights i guess the darker it is the more claustrophobic ,stay safe
Holy that looks fun but scary all in one ..be safe 👏🏼👏🏼🦅
So tight this place... incredible to work in this conditions...
Your Titanium Balls and the anxiety this causes me… amazing!✌🏼
🤣 wait until you see the video I just filmed. I crawl deep around the working you see at the end of this video
I've never been in a coal mine before. I feel like the roof hangs lower than a gold/silver mine. Do they? I used to explore old abandoned mines with my parents. We spent out summers in Ouray, CO. It's an old gold mining town. You can basically stand upright in those.
Damn bro I got a lot of respect for you again thank you for risking your ass to bring us this awesome footage my body is broken so I wish I can do it you are doing but it's all good but then yet there's not enough cocaine and morphine in the world that particular stoked out area I used to spend a lot of time in the swamp down here in South Florida I have dealt with insects and Gators that would kill you in a heartbeat and again that's probably not enough money in this world to get me down that nightmare stoked out are you thank you so much man watching your videos to helps me stay sober besides my medications I have to take don't want to it sucks my body is not good my mind is not either but LOL who's is in these days back on track thank you bud I'll be recommending your videos to everybody I know yes I will start hitting likes for you🎉😅
Super cool find,,, be safe, my friend !
Makes me wonder why you never run into a Bear lol, im glad you dont, my luck i would
Cool mine!
I always wonder where the equipment went when they shut down? Did they strip the mines afterwards?
If I remember right, they had a crawler that the operator could sit and recline in to fit those narrow seams of coal, and not wear out the knees of their trousers. Sad that it is all gone, but the holes.
I wonder too. And in some cases literally everything is left behind.
@@AmazingPennsylvania As if they were going to come right back to work, right?
it still baffles me how you find these mines
30in is the lowest I have worked in are main travel ways were cut at 52in so you could get the so called life shelter through
Keep an eye out for old Blue Jeans, A pair from the 1800's can bring in a thousand bucks even in rough shape.
I found an opening that might lead to the hospital this guy was telling me about .But it's all blocked with steal.U can feel the cold air coming out of it though.
Sounds very interesting 🤔
Yeah I have a picture of the opening.
@Donna Silver really cool. I'd love to see and hear more about it. pkudey@comcast.net or Phil Kudey on Facebook
in the UK all mines had to submit abandonment plans to the govement so other mines could not accidentaly break into old workings are there mine plans for all these mines you go in or did they not record where they had taken the coal out, technicaly you would know which mine you you were in from the plans and know the extent of the workings, i know Kentucky recorded the mine plans but did Pensilvania...because most of the mines you go in look suspisiously bootleg to me...i could be wrong.
Wow I didn't know that about the UK. Pennsylvania is full of bootleg and undocumented coal mines. I don't believe those were requirements here
How do you not get lost in these places? keep safe out there 👍👍👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💪💪💪
What lies on the ground above this mines? I think the day the logs are too rotten to hold up the roof. A collapse will create distortions in the terrain like an earthquake, if Pennsylvania is a Swiss cheese. Hope it's not a city.
Cool and terrifying at the same time.
U have ALOT of guts.
Looks like a battery bank….
You ever hit any mines, caves, or tunnels under old forge, Taylor, Moosic areas??
Yep Mossic I've done several, and actually have another video coming up in a week or two. Old forge just a tiny one. Taylor nothing yet
@@AmazingPennsylvania there used to be a brick building right off main st in Taylor there where there’s now a resi. Idk if they filled all that in back there or not
HIGHBRIDGE TRAIL 🐍 SINCE 1921 AKRON OHIO
Like how did they know where the coal was in the first place ? Was it showing on the surface ?
Interesting video❤❤❤❤👍👍👍
Need merch with Sketch City.
What county was this one in? Don’t worry, I have zero interest in checking it out either, just curious….
every think about bringing a metal detector down there so see if anyone left anything behind?
Metal detecting is a hobby I haven't gotten in. Maybe someday. I more into the adventure and photography side
@@AnthraciteHorrorStories never thought of the iron getting in the way... its be cool if you found some lost change from a miner long ago
There is way too much heavy metal garbage laying around inside the mine that would drive even the best most advanced metal detector crazy... cans, cables , shovels, bolts, nuts , nails , sheet metal, you name it.... but I don't doubt that there would be coins too to be found that fell out of the miners pockets due to the way they had to crawl and navigate the workings. Bettter luck and more finds will be had searching the path of travel the miners took to get to the entrance of the mine day in and day out. 👍
@@milemarker_oscar_mike yeah that sucks but still maybe stick the detector on the gold only setting ?
@@Rockaland2 I'm confident there would be a few excellent targets to be found , but as Anthracite Horror Stories mentioned , and I agree you would literally be overwhelmed with false signals and terrible frustration would set in fast ... especially having a lot of fallen solid stone and stone debris to deal with on the floor while trying to dig and uncover your target.
That was crazy sick....
i was dying when you almost fell and busted yourself XD
Yeah I'm gonna start leaving those in the videos 🤣
@Amazing Pennsylvania yeah we used to leave a lot out. We had a mineshaft almost collapse on us once and we felt some type of way about hiding it!
Would have been video gold now that we look back on it!
That mine is awesome man!
OMG THESE VIDS ARE THE BEST IM YOUR #1❤❤❤❤❤❤
They had a hard job.
Did you ever consider using a drone for those tight, dangerous areas?
I would definitely love to. Maybe one day if I get rich and popular enough lol
@@AmazingPennsylvania How much for what you would need? It would give some amazing shots of the caves
Be safe too, bro.
Educated people never go under unsupported roof
Congratulations
Cool find
I’m sure you get this all the time phill but I would love to join you and I weigh 105 pounds I can fit through holes that you couldn’t imagine and I’m not afraid to do it.
amazing, ty
🤘😎
Those Men And They We're Real Men Worked for Day's And Months And Year's To Feed Your Family! You Could Be a Simple Uneducated Person or A Educated Fellow Who had to Feed His Family! Yes If You Needed to Feed your Family you Worked in Hell and Hoped you Weren't Killed!
You da Man! Not me brother!
❤❤❤
Trust me that were not any old fat guys in there! Where is this, it looks like an old pit I inspected 30years ago
Luzerne County. I've come across many that look almost identical to this drift. And there's several nearby back filled as well
Pancake city
I support the new hair style broseph
lol 😂 thanks my man
Hairgel over hardhats