The Renton Coal Mine Reopens
A new co-operative venture aims to reopen the long-shuttered Renton coal mine, promising jobs and coal at fair prices for the community.
The Renton coal mine, which has been shut down for the past eight years, will soon be reopened and worked by a co-operative company. The mine is located about eight miles south of the city and yields a good quality of coal. Rees P. Daniels, of this city, is the chief promoter of the company which proposes to open it. It is proposed to put the principle of co-operation in force not only in the production, but in the distribution of the output of the mine, by selling stock among the consumers and thereby furnishing a sure and steady market for the coal, and ultimately employing about 300 men. The company intends making this an ideal working man's home. The capital stock of the company is $100,000, in 1,000 shares of $100 each, non-assessable. No one person is allowed more than ten votes, thereby making it impossible for the affairs of the company to be run in the interest of a few. The company proposes to confine its membership to competent workmen, to pay first-class wages and offer regular employment to its shareholders.
“The company intends making this an ideal working man's home.”
This 1895 attempt at a worker-owned cooperative in the coal industry reflects the era's labor unrest and the search for alternatives to corporate monopolies. Renton remains a city defined by its industrial history, though the coal mines have long since been replaced by the aerospace manufacturing that dominates the region today.
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