The Search for Coal on Mill Creek
Sheriff Thomas Honey spearheads a serious effort to tap into South Bend's bituminous coal deposits.
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.
Sheriff Thomas Honey has drills at work developing his coal ledge on Mill creek. He intends sinking a shaft seventy-five feet deep and six feet square to ascertain the amount of coal there is in the vein. The outcrops there are of quality bituminous coal, and on the surface the vein varies from eight to sixteen feet in width. Coal prospects are numerous in the county, but this is the first serious effort to develop any of them.
“Coal prospects are numerous in the county, but this is the first serious effort to develop any of them.”
In the 1890s, every town in Washington hoped to be the next big coal hub, leading to frantic private-sector prospecting that often left the landscape dotted with abandoned shafts. This story captures the 'booster' energy of the era, where individual landowners gambled on the potential of the earth beneath them.
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