Life and Labor at the Newcastle Coal Mines
With over 250 men working around the clock, the Newcastle mining camp is booming, but workers are facing a severe housing shortage.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There are now over 250 men employed in and about the Newcastle mine. This only includes those on the company’s payroll, and is a greater number than ever before employed there at any one time. The average output of coal is about 800 tons per day, the greater portion of which comes out of the slope at Coal Creek, about one mile distant from the camp of Newcastle. There is a great scarcity of house-room at the mine, every available house being occupied, and several new ones are being constructed by the company, both at the camp and Coal Creek. The mine runs night and day, including Sunday. The miners work in shifts of about six or eight hours each, and make good wages. The new superintendent seems to give general satisfaction, and everything moves on quite harmoniously.
“There is a great scarcity of house-room at the mine, every available house being occupied.”
The struggle for adequate worker housing in industrial boomtowns like Newcastle in 1883 mirrors the contemporary challenge of providing affordable, proximate housing for the workforce fueling Seattle's modern economic engines. The pressure of a 24/7 industrial schedule on local infrastructure remains a recurring theme in the region's urban development.
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