Shirley - I am going to post this on the Perry County list and I hope some real native will answer - I am related by marriage to the Bowser/Clark/Orr/Campbells of Hopewell Township. However my grandfather, Lou Laube, in about 1896 brought the blessing of electricity to Shawnee. At that time Shawnee was a commercial center of southeast Ohio and with great expectations of future growth. Earlier in the 1800's there had been several important iron furnaces in southeastern Perry County and in Logan along the Hockhocking River. At first in the early 1800's iron furnaces used charcoal for fuel, but by 1850 they had been converted to coal - There were shallow veins of iron ore layered with deposits of coal and a living could be scratched out of the ground by scraping away the thin layer of earth and also by digging tunnels into the side of hills. But by 1900, I am writing from a fallabile memory, the iron furnaces were gone. If I remember corrrectly the coal of this area was not as good for this purpose as the harder coal of Pennsylvania. There was always brick and tile, but I think wood and later gas was the preferred fuel. In the late 1800's and early 1900's The Ohio Power Company began buying up the local franchises for supplying electicity to the towns and villages of eastern Ohio. Earlier a few inventive men had installed Edison type generating plants which supplied direct current in the day time to operate a few street cars and some of them began lighting a few blocks of streets with arc lights. And they ran a few wires to nearby homes and until about midnight these newly invented generators supplied enough current to light a bulb or two. My grandfather wrote notes for an Ohio Power news letterdetailing how he had sold electric fans to fvew lucky office workers and supplied a oil wells with lights so they could safely drill 24 hours-a- day. Eliminating the danger of open torches - there was always gas when drilling for oil. Natural gas was a major competitor for electrcity in those days. Lancaster gave free gas to any industry that would come there. The Ohio Power Company eliminated all of these small direct current generating plants and built centrally located coal fired plants, one of the largest at Newark. For the first part of the 20th century the coal mines of the area continued to prosper. From the beginning Welsh and Scot miners (and no doubt others) had come into the area. Beginning in the 1850's Railroads were built and the coal was hauled out by the trainload. It was black gold. The story of the strike and the fire in the mines - I will leave to others. About 1930 the Philo plant of the Ohio Power Company was brought on line. In it's early history it had the largest electrcial generator in the world. Coal was brought in by rail and barge. It supplied electricty for all of eastern Ohio. The plant is long gone. So are the stripmining and the most of the coal mines - is there an operating coal mine in Perry County? Maybe someone will name the mine around Dixie. Regards Hal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Shirley Braunbeck To: Zurlauben@mindspring.com Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 9:48 PM Subject: PERRY COUNTY Inquiry Dear Mr. Laube, I have read with interest many of your postings on Rootsweb, etc and I see that in a '98 archives you spoke of the coal mines of Shawnee. My mother-in-law, who is 92 yrs old, tells of living in Dixie, which was somewhere around New Lexington and that her father worked in the coal mine. She would "walk the tracks" to Shawnee to go to church. Since you are a native, I was wondering what light you can shed on Dixie and the mining industry in the early 1900's in that area. Thank you. Shirley Braunbeck