History of Vermilion County, Illinois, Volume One, Part 25

Author: Williams, Jack Moore, 1886-
Publication date: 1930
Publisher: Topeka, [Kan.] ; Indianapolis, [Ind.] : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 552


USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, Illinois, Volume One > Part 25


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There are many clays. Whiteware, refractory and pottery clays are high grade clays. Whiteware clays are divided into Kaolin, China and Ball clays. Refractory clays are divided into Plastic Fire, Flint and Refractory Shale clays. The refractory clay is the only high grade clay used in Danville. The others are used more by pot- teries.


Vitrifying and brick clays are the chief divisions of low grade clay as known in Danville. Other clays in this group are: Loes and Abode clays and Fullers Earth. The Vitrifying clays are subdivided into Stoneware clays


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and shales, paving Brick clays and shales, Sewer Pipe clays and shales and Roofing Tile clays and shales. Terra Cotta clays and shales, Common Brick clays and shales and Drain Tile clays and shales comprise the brick clays.


According to Frank W. Butterworth, of the Western Brick Company, high grade clays of the Whiteware and Pottery clay groups are used to produce articles of com- paratively light weight, where the cost of procuring the raw material is a very small factor. They are used in the manufacture of artware, pottery, chinaware, porcelains, sanitaryware and insulating material. Refractory clays find their use in the making of wares of high fire and heat resisting qualities, such as fire brick, retorts, furnace and stove linings.


Face, paving and common brick, sewer pipe, terra cotta, roofing tile and drain tile are made from the low grade clays.


Prior to 1888 only the surface or alluvial clays of the county had been worked, and those only in a small way in the manufacture of common "low grade" building brick and drain tile.


About that year the Grape Creek Coal Company, south- east of Danville, opened a brick plant, which was operated intermittently until 1895 under the management of Dr. Joseph Fairhall. It was then abandoned.


J. G. Shea opened a clay plant in 1891 just west of Danville, this plant later being taken over by the Danville Brick Company.


With practically an inexhaustible supply of "low grade" shale and clay in this section, Danville faces a brilliant future from an industrial standpoint, with shale replacing coal as the county's greatest mineral product.


CHAPTER XXII


VERMILION COUNTY COAL


FIRST COAL MINES IN THIS SECTION-PROMOTERS-ROMANTIC CAREER OF "MIKE" KELLY-APPROXIMATE COAL PRODUCTION-DANVILLE'S FUTURE IN COAL.


Coal was distributed through Vermilion County with a lavish hand by nature back in the prehistoric days and despite the serious depressions in coal mining in the sev- enties and again during the past few years, coal is the county's greatest natural resource.


Vermilion County ranks seventh among the counties of the state in the production of coal and the history of mining in the vicinity of Danville presents plenty of romance.


La Salle found coal croppings along the Illinois River in 1669 and the first coal mine on the North American conti- nent was opened in 1670 at what is now Ottawa.


The presence of coal in Vermilion County was dis- covered by the early settlers and strip bank mining was started in the vicinity of Danville in the early fifties.


It is an irony of fate that back in the twenties and even before, when salt was regarded as the greatest natural resource of Vermilion County, that the operators of the old Salt Works laboriously cut wood for the fires under the kettles of brine, while a few feet away coal croppings showed above the ground.


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The existence of coal, however, was learned a few years later, but it was not used outside of the blacksmith shops. As there was no mining, the extent of the coal deposits was not realized until the fifties. Maj. John W. Vance did use coal in the early thirties at the Salt Works.


Dudley Lacock, who owned considerable land west of Danville, may be given the credit for mining the first com- mercial coal, but he found little demand for the fuel and in 1854 moved to Livingston County.


W. Caruthers and Mr. Ball did a little mining as early as 1853 and further to the south William Kirkland opened drift mines east of the Wabash Railroad bridge south of Danville.


Chandler & Donlan did the first extensive mining in 1860 and they were followed by Peter R. Leonard.


The first coal mining company, known as the Danville Coal Mining Company, was incorporated February 14, 1855, by Ward Hill Lamon and associates, but this com- pany never operated.


Mrs. Armanella Skelton, 616 Chandler Street, Danville, is authority for the statement that her father, Henry Cramer, opened the first strip bank in Hungry Hollow in 1865.


Mr. Cramer had settled with his family in Hungry Hollow in 1862. William Van Kirk, a neighbor of the Cramers, opened a strip bank a short time later and the two men were friendly business rivals.


The strip banks were close enough together that one man could call to the other. Customers drove their teams and wagons to the strip banks and loaded the coal, which cost one dollar for all that could be put in the wagon bed.


Mrs. Skelton recalls that as a little girl she could see the wagons coming down the road and as the drivers neared


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the strip banks, her father and Mr. Van Kirk would begin calling out :


"This way for good coal. All you can put on your bed for one dollar."


Mrs. Skelton recalls the first coal mining operations of Michael Kelly, the most picturesque figure in the coal min- ing industry in the state. This, she states, was in 1868, when he opened a "dug-out," digging a hole back in the hills, near the scene of her father's operations.


Kelly had been working in Perry Fairchild's brickyard in Danville, she states, and was as poor as Job's proverbial turkey. In fact, he did not own the necessary clothing to make a decent appearance in the public, but he possessed a heart as big as a bushel basket, as Mrs. Skelton describes it, and was a clean-minded hard worker, very much in love with his family.


Kelly later abandoned his operations in the Hungry Hollow territory and bought some coal land in the Grape Creek field. He secured a contract to furnish coal to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad and his production rapidly increased.


He discovered another vein of coal at a depth of ninety feet, which was eight and nine feet thick and of better quality. L. T. Dickerson became associated with Kelly and they built up a flourishing business. Kelly bought his part- ner out, purchased more land and had two mines in opera- tion.


Mike Kelly, as he was familiarly known, bought the Himrod Coal Company in 1903 for two hundred sixty thousand dollars and became the largest individual coal operator in Illinois.


In 1905 Mike Kelly sold his mining interests to a syndi- cate, formed by the late Senator William B. Mckinley, for


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three million dollars. These properties were later acquired by the Bunsen Coal Company, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of the Illinois Steel Corporation, this company buying several thousand acres of coal lands and beginning extensive operations.


Then came the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, of which the Illinois Steel Corporation is now a subsidiary, and the creation of the United States Fuel Company, which followed the Bunsen Coal Company, which now owns the old Kelly interests.


From poverty to millions was the colorful career of Mike Kelly, the most remarkable man Vermilion County ever produced. Mrs. Skelton, during her girlhood, spent six years in the Kelly family at the Kelly home, corner of Williams Street and Logan Avenue, where the Children's Home now stands.


Despite his utter lack of education, Mrs. Skelton declares that he could solve more difficult mathematical problems in his head than the average man could with pencil and paper. He was four-square in his dealings with his fellowmen and a wonderful husband and father.


Reverting to the days when her father opened the first strip bank in Hungry Hollow, Mrs. Skelton tells an inter- esting story of how Hungry Hollow got its name.


In 1865, the Cramer family ran low on flour. There was enough for gravy and pie crust, but not enough for the biscuits Mrs. Skelton's mother made and which were the special delight of her father.


One night, her mother said:


"Pop, you'll have to go to town and get some flour."


That night it rained and the water in the North Fork ran so high it was three days before it could be crossed at the old Sutherland Ford.


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There was plenty of corn meal and the family subsisted on corn bread. Three days without biscuits made Mr. Cramer a morose man and he finally remarked :


"Well, corn bread three times a day. This is certainly Hungry Hollow."


Members of the family told the neighbors of the joke on "Pop," by the high water cheating him out of his biscuits he loved so well, and the name "Hungry Hollow" became a household term and has been used ever since to designate that territory directly west of Danville and now reached by the bridge at the foot of the Williams Street hill.


It is not amiss here to tell the story of the puma, or mountain lion, that made its home for a short time in Hungry Hollow, according to Mrs. Skelton.


The puma first appeared one night at the home of William Van Kirk. He hastily made a trip to the Cramer home and borrowed the gun in the expectation of seeing the animal the next night.


But the next night the puma appeared in the Cramer yard and the only gun was at the Van Kirk home. Mrs. Cramer began praying for deliverance from the animal, which she thought to be wild cat. Mrs. Skelton had extreme faith in her father's ability to protect the family and she also possessed a deep curiosity to see the animal.


She persuaded her father to raise the window blind and show her the "wild cat." He did so, and in the moon- light she saw the tawny animal, fully five feet long, just as it disappeared. It was never seen again in that section.


When she was seventeen, Mrs. Skelton was taken to her first circus. She was passing through the menagerie when she heard a roar similar to that of the night when she saw the "wild cat." She found the animal that made the roar and saw that it was almost an exact duplicate of the


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animal that was in her father's yard. It was a puma and she is of the opinion that the animal that visited Hungry Hollow was a puma that had escaped from some circus.


The real beginning of the coal industry in Vermilion County, however, dates back to 1866 when William Kirk- land, Hugh Blankeney, Mrs. Graves and Mr. Lafferty opened coal mines in the Grape Creek field.


Kirkland imported the first coal miners, two carloads, on account of the scarcity of labor and later he imported a whole shipload of Belgians to work in the strip mining operations. The Illinois Railway Company, which had tracks laid to the mines, took most of the Kirkland coal.


A. C. Daniel sunk a shaft in 1870 for the Ellsworth Coal Company and two years later sunk another shaft for the same company. These properties experienced the first coal miners' strike in Vermilion County.


One shaft was burned down by accident and a second was burned by strikers, who were arrested and sent to the penitentiary in 1874.


The Consolidated Coal Company also began operations on an extensive scale in the Missionfield district. The Pawnee Coal Company was organized in 1888 by Paul W. Mckay and Mr. Hutchinson to operate a mine in the Grape Creek field. The Brookside Coal Company was organized by Bernard and Charles Himrod to take over the Pawnee holdings. This company also opened another mine on land it acquired. The holdings of this company were bought by Mike Kelly in 1903.


West Vermilion Heights also became a coal mining center in 1870, when John C. Short, banker, real estate operator and railroad builder, opened the Moss Bank mine. In 1873 this property was taken over by the Paris & Dan-


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ville Railroad. General R. H. Carnahan, of Civil War fame, was manager of this property for several years.


It is interesting to note that General Carnahan, while a captain in the Third Illinois Cavalry, saved the life of Governor Richard Yates, who was a spectator of the battle of Port Gibson, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rapid pro- motion followed this act and Carnahan, then a colonel, retired after a short Indian campaign following the Civil War, being promoted to a general.


In 1879, A. C. Daniel, who operated the Ellsworth mines, bought the Carbon Coal Company and several other smaller mines, and operated them under the name of the Consolidated Coal Company.


Eighteen hundred ninety-two saw labor and other troubles in the operation of the Economy coal mine west of Danville, and J. G. Hammond, the operator, after a year or two, sent to Iowa for two young friends to help him out.


These men became prominent in the coal fields of Ver- milion County. They were William G. Hartshorn, now dead, and John G. Hartshorn. They bought an interest in the mine and put it on a paying basis.


The Hartshorn brothers and J. A. Barnard, general manager of the Big Four Railroad, organized the Electric Coal Company in 1903. They also organized the Harts- horn Coal Company, which operated the Entronous Coal Company's mine at Muncie. In 1909 the Hartshorns organized the Missionfield Coal Company and put that min- ing proposition on a paying basis.


W. B. Hartshorn became interested in the Mckinley properties. The Hartshorns disposed of their interests in this section to the United Electric Coal Company a few years ago. William G. Hartshorn, Jr., and John G. Harts- horn organized the Black Servant Coal Company, which


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operated mines in southern Illinois, maintaining the com- pany's headquarters in this city for several years. The Hartshorns sold the Black Servant Company's properties in 1929.


The history of the complete coal mining operations in Vermilion County is too long to give it the necessary space, and an effort has been made in this article to touch only the high points in what is the county's greatest industry.


There have been many men interested in mining and many companies have been organized in the years that have passed, but the outstanding figures in this industry are Mike Kelly and the Hartshorn brothers, William G. and John G. Through the consolidations and operations of these three men, Vermilion County is today the home of two of the greatest coal mining companies in the country --- the United States Fuel Company and the United Electric Coal Company.


State geologists have estimated that there were orig- inally one billion, sixty-nine million, seven hundred eighty- eight thousand tons of No. 6 and five hundred seven mil- lion, four hundred ninety-four thousand four hundred tons of No. 7 coal, or a total of one billion, five hundred seventy- seven million, two hundred eighty-two thousand four hun- dred tons in Vermilion County. It is estimated that there has been something over one hundred fifty million tons mined, leaving approximately a billion and a half tons in reserve.


Vermilion County coal comes from two veins, which underlie a considerable area of the county and outcrop in the vicinity of Danville. These two veins are No. 7, or so-called Danville coal, and No. 6, or so-called Grape Creek coal. No. 6 is thickest south of Danville and No. 7 is thickest northwest of the city.


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No. 6 is the more important of the two coals. This vein averages more than six feet in thickness and generally occurs in two benches, separated by a shaly parting, known as the "blue band." The washed coal from this vein has been found excellent for coke or smokeless coal.


There is a third vein, lying about one hundred eighty- two feet below No. 6, known as No. 2, which is split by shale bands as to be of inferior value and it is not taken into account as part of the coal resources. In the extreme southwestern and southern parts of Danville, the land is underlain by commercial thicknesses of both veins.


Vermilion County has produced as high as three million five hundred thousand tons of coal annually, which coal had a value at the mines of more than seven million five hundred thousand dollars.


No. 7 coal has a higher sulphur content than No. 6, and is less desirable for domestic use. It also contains a higher percentage of volatile matter, which escapes burning in the ordinary stove. With perfect combustion, however, No. 7 furnishes eleven thousand one hundred and forty- three British Thermal Units per pound, against ten thou- sand nine hundred and eighty-nine British Thermal Units per pound for No. 6 coal. Back in 1870 a writer made the following statement about Vermilion County's coal :


"And when we call to mind that each acre contains ten thousand tons of coal, and that it is worth two cents per bushel to the proprietors when placed in the cars, it is apparent that the only financial question with them is to exhaust the coal, as at that rate the land will yield five thousand dollars per acre."


H. W. Beckwith, in his History of Vermilion County, in discussing the operations of General Carnahan and A. C. Daniel, wrote :


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"The reader should not draw from this that the Moss Bank and South Danville will some time make General Carnahan or Mr. Daniel vice-regents of the world, but they will give to Danville a permanent prominence of which nothing can deprive her."


CHAPTER XXIII


POWER AND RAILROADS


DANVILLE AS AN IMPORTANT LINK-INDUSTRIAL CENTER-POSSIBILI- TIES OF ELECTRICITY-THE DANVILLE PLANT-DANVILLE INDIANA LINE-THE ILLINOIS POWER AND LIGHT CORPORATION-RAILROADS -THEIR SIGNIFICANCE TO DANVILLE.


Danville is an important link in the super power sys- tem of the middle west through the awakening of the sleep- ing giant of electricity by the Illinois Power and Light Corporation.


The awakening of the power giant provides a powerful leverage that promises to make Danville an industrial cen- ter of the middle west.


It is estimated that only about ten per cent of the pos- sible development of electrical power has been achieved, and this, in view of the marvelous growth of the industry since its comparative recent inception, serves to indicate the unlimited possibilities yet to be witnessed.


The first electric light plant in Danville was put in operation February 14, 1884, just a year and a half after the first electric lighting plant in the United States was installed. Even forty-four years ago Danville kept abreast of the times.


There is no phase of industrial or home life in Dan- ville that electricity doesn't effect in some way. Industries


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are electrified and even coal mines are becoming electrically equipped.


Super power, the strongest term that can be applied to electricity, is the rock foundation upon which the Dan- ville of the future is being built.


Extension of electrified energy to the rural districts is one of the latest developments and farmers are wiring their barns, poultry houses, homes and even their yards, and using electricity to operate incubators, feed grinders, milkers and other farm machinery.


Just a glimpse of the tremendous possibilities of elec- tricity may be gained from the fact that United States Department of Agriculture experts have matured a field of soy beans in twenty to twenty-five days by exposing it to electric light rays eight to twelve hours daily. Soy beans, on the average, require eighty-five days for mature growth. It's only a step to the time when a farmer will push a button to speed the growth of his crops.


The Merchants Electric Light and Power Company pioneered the electric age in Danville. It was organized January 23, 1883, and February 14, 1884, installed a six- teen light arc machine, driven from the line shaft of the old planing mill of the Danville Lumber and Manufactur- ing Company, located where the Koons furnace plant now stands. A few months later the plant was moved to the present site.


Current was furnished for ten arc lights located in stores and the old Armory. Louis Platt was president and E. A. Leonard, secretary and treasurer, of this pioneer company.


Today the ten arc lights have grown into six hundred and eighty-seven modern street lighting units. Electricity is distributed to fifteen thousand eight hundred and seven-


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teen customers. There are twelve thousand nine hundred and five poles and one thousand three hundred and eight miles of wire used in this distribution system.


Power is carried to outlying towns over three hundred and fifty-eight miles of wire and three thousand three hundred and seventy poles. There are one hundred and forty-three steel transmission line towers. The steam gen- erating station uses approximately eighty-eight thousand tons of coal a year. Steam heat is furnished five hundred and thirty customers through four miles of heat mains.


The following towns are served with electricity from the Danville plant : Westville, Georgetown, Chrisman, Ridgefarm, Tilton, Sidell, Indianola, Hillery, Olivet, Hegeler, Belgium, Muncie and Vermilion Grove. In addi- tion current is sold at Lyons to the Homer Electric Light and Power Company, which distributes electricity to the towns of Catlin, Fairmount, Homer, Jamaica, Philo and Sidney.


The steel tower transmission lines connect on the east with the Wabash Valley Electric Company at Covington, Indiana, and on the west with Champaign, Decatur, Bloom- ington, Peoria and Pekin, insuring Danville and vicinity plenty of electricity at all times.


The modern power plant here operates fourteen boilers, one seven thousand five hundred KW turbo-generator, one four thousand KW turbo-generator, one two thousand KW steam driven generator, one one thousand KW steam driven generator.


One of the largest steam shovels in the world has been installed by the United Electric Coal Company west of Danville. It will be electrically operated. This company also operates a large electric shovel at Duquoin, Illinois.


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The United States Fuel Company's mines at Bunsenville and Vermilion are both electrified.


The super power plant on the east that is hooked up with Danville is the "Dresser" plant on the Wabash River, seven miles from Terre Haute, Indiana, which is a two hundred thousand KW plant.


At the Danville plant there is a new sixty-six thousand volt substation that has the kick of ten thousand horse power. This high-powered steel structure is a "spare room" to entertain the juice that comes from the "Dresser" dam, by way of Covington, Indiana. It guarantees an uninterrupted supply of electrical energy, and the moment the turbines in the local plant refuse to perform, this powerful substation will take up the job of distributing the "Hoosier" juice through the Danville system.


The new sixty-six thousand volt Danville-Indiana line was first energized May 4, 1928. The new steel tower transmission line from the west also ties into this sub- station. Normally this substation will be used to "step up" the voltage of current generated at two thousand three hundred volts to sixty-six thousand volts, but in an emer- gency a reverse operation will "step down" the Indiana juice of sixty-six thousand volts to two thousand three hun- dred volts for use in the city of Danville and vicinity.


In this substation are four two thousand five hundred KVA transformers, four seventy-three thousand volt oil circuit breakers, three sixty-six thousand volt lightning arresters, air break switches, choke coils and other aux- iliary equipment such as synchronizing, metering and dif- ferential protective apparatus.


This substation represents an outlay of two hundred thousand dollars and it cost an additional fifty thousand


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dollars to connect with the Wabash Valley Electric Com- pany at Covington, Indiana.


This transmission line connecting Danville with the Indiana "juice" is also used as a channel of communica- tion for the new Duplex Automatic High Frequency tele- phone or "Carrier Current" phone of the Illinois Power and Light Corporation. This radio communication line makes it possible for the Danville plant to get in touch immediately with the Dresser dam, Indianapolis or any point on the Indiana system at any time it is necessary to hook onto the Hoosier current.


This modern telephone system has a transmitter and receiver at each station. The transmitter is essentially a generator of radio frequency alternating current and there is an apparatus for modulating this current in con- formity with voice impulses, similar to radio broadcasting transmitters. The receiver is similar to the ordinary radio receiver, designed, however, for wave lengths greater than those commonly found in broadcasting receivers, and con- sists of a two-circuit tuner, vacuum tube detector and one amplifier.


In many installations the antennae are single con- ductors coupled by being run on insulators on the trans- mission towers as close to the transmission conductors as safety will permit. Condensers are used at the Danville end, however, instead of antennae. In other words this phone system does not use a long distance wire, but uses instead the high tension line of electric current, which carries the voice on the same principle as the radio wave.




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