COAL AND COAL MINING
In that portion of Rock Island county lying west of Rock river the coal measures are found as outliers, overlaying and resting upon the Devonian and Silurian limestone. as far north as in the vicinity of Port Byron. where it terminates. The most northerly point where a workable bed of coal has been found on this side of the river is at Rapids City, where the seam is from four to five feet thick. and overlies the Niagara limestone, with only a few feet in thickness of shale and fire clay between. Two miles east of Hampton, where coal shafts have been sunk, are good seams from four to five feet thick. The Carbon Cliff mines were the first to be worked on the west side of Rock river. For many years extensive coal operations, in connection with an establishment for the manufacture of pottery and fire brick, were carried on there, under the management of W. S. Thomas, but the supply of coal became exhausted and mining was discontinued.
The triangular piece of elevated land east of the city of Rock Island, bounded by Pleasant Valley, Rock river and the Mississippi river, is a mass of coal measure materials resting upon a Devonian or upper Silurian formation of underlying limestone. All that part of the county south and east of the Mississippi and Rock river ranges of bluffs is underlaid by coal measures. In every part of the county these measures are covered with a deep deposit of drift clay.
At Milan, Carbon Cliff, and east of the city of Rock Island this drift clay is from forty to seventy-five feet in thickness. South of Rock river the coal measures are more regular, and more extensively developed than in the northern part of the county.
The coal mining interest is an important branch of industry in Rock Island county. According to the inspector's report of 1876 there were twenty-six mines regularly operated in the county eight months of the year, and some twenty others occasionally worked. In these mines were employed an aggregate of 941 miners, the average for the whole time being 650. Six important mines were operated constantly.
The total number of tons of coal mined for the year was 299,225; its value at the mines was $597,917. The average value of coal at the mines was $1.99 per ton. The amount of capital invested in the mines at that time was $243,750. The capacity of the mines worked was 506,550 tons annually. The thickness of the coal seams varies from 31/2, to 5 1/2. feet, and they are reached at a depth of from 40 to 120 feet. The coal is raised at the principal mines by steam power.
In the fall of 1879 a strike for higher wages occurred among the coal miners at Hampton and Rapids City. It continued six weeks and on January 12, 1880, culminated in a riot at the Hampton mines in Happy Valley. A sheriff's posse was called out, several leaders were arrested and brought to Rock Island. After trial they were released and returned to their homes.
Rock Island county forms a part of the Second Coal Inspection District of the state of Illinois, the other counties in the district being Bureau, Henry, Knox, Mercer, Stark and Warren. In 1912 there were 275 working coal mines in the state, thirteen of these being situ ated in Rock Island county. These employed 157 men, and mined 72,246 tons of coal during the year.
Historic Rock Island
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