[or-roots] coos count history story / coal mining

[Leslie Chapman]

Robyn;

It is interesting to listen to narratives from a time when these communities were so small they were seperated by significant distance. We ate somewhere in Coos Bay a while back (Pancake Mill?) that had a bunch of historical photos and unlike so many other places some of these were captioned so you knew what you were seeing. I believe it was Broadway as a puncheon road that really caught my eye, all it was was a row of squared timbers laid side by side in a through cut with nary a structure in sight.

Also you have seen this I assume;

Stars in the Dark: Coal Mines of Southwestern Oregon by Dow Beckham (1995)

I remember when we went through the area in 1957, mom mentioning that the piling and so forth across the slough from where 42 crosses Davis slough had been a coal mine. A few years later the subject came up again when there was an attempt to discover oil in the area. But I had no idea how much mining and exploration for coal had gone on until reading Dow's book.

It is sort of like old sawmill sites in so much of Oregon. I have been places that look like man had never set foot there before me in so many parts of Oregon, only to discover here was an old mill site, and over yonder up that draw was another one and so on. Coal mines in the Coos Bay area are the same way. Pretty much from Hauser to Coquille and part way to Bandon on 101 you never get very far from one. 

The county annex in North Bend has an old mine directly underneath it that burned for a long time. I think about that every once and a while as I drive by, it would be extremely awkward if it caved in some day.

Les