Why Coal Breakers were Horrific Places to Work (Coal Breakers Explained)

I still remember my grandfather would have to walk 4-5 miles to work at the paper mill, and on his way there, he would pick up pieces of coal along the tracks that fell off the cars and he would set it aside in piles. When his shift was done at the paper mill and he would walk back to home, he would pick up the small piles of coal he made earlier that morning to bring home to the family for heating the house and for heating the stove to cook on.

In 1970 I started work at Magma Copper in Superior Arizona. I was assigned to the mill and crusher section and most new hires were "pickers" for a couple of weeks. All sorts of garbage comes out of a copper mine as the miners use the ore chutes as a garbage dump. Wood, broken "jacks" (sledge hammers) and lots and lots of blasting caps. As a picker you had to pull out as much as you could before it hit the jaw crusher. There was another picker before the Symons crusher to get what the first guy missed. The Symons crushed the ore into pea gravel size. Occasionally the first guy missed a sledge hammer head and it was important for the second guy to get it. If not, a sledge hammer head being bigger than pea gravel size makes a hell of a racket in the second crusher. They said you could hear it in downtown Superior when it happened.

As a state worker from Philadelphia I first got to see some of these massive buildings in my travel for my job. As noted most of them are now inactive since coal useage has dropped off. I grew up with coal heat when I was younger and did notice the difference in coal quality that we used to heat our house. A good load of coal resulted in a nice fine white ash. Coal with slate or other impurities did not burn as well and resulted with ash with lumps of unburnt coal attached to whatever the impurity consigned of. It is nice to see someone put up the history of the hard work that went into processing coal for consumption.

Just imagine the noise. It must have been horribly loud. At a time when going deaf was just considered "getting used to" the noise.

My grandpa was a breaker boy and only those of us who grew up in NEPA regularly saw these old abandoned breakers and the culm banks that were never cleaned up.

I had two Grandfathers who were miners as young kids in North Eastern PA, one was a breaker boy the other tended to the mules down in the mines.....the working conditions and the way the mining company treated its workers was hellish and unbelievably unbearable..

I am a 67y coal mine engineer from India.enjoy all coal mine related video of all country..can not forget joy and sorrow of the profession left 7y ago.

As someone who fell down a research rabbit hole and hyperfixated on breaker boys at two in the morning four months ago, it is absolutely AMAZINF that there’s a whole documentary on it. There was very little information on the internet on coal mines unless it was about the strikes, and every new website had a repeat of old information. Stoked when a friend sent this to me.

🚂 On a side note, many of the Pennsylvania coal mines have been repurposed to grow mushrooms that are rich in protein and provide jobs to the local community 🍄

I live in South Africa, just as much coal mining activities here, I worked at a mine on the Swaziland boarder for two years, my brother's both ten years, my dad the same place 28 years . All of us are artisans, I luckily moved to a papermill in the same area. The mines are treacherous places to work 👌

My uncle used to work as a miner. He was picking up wooden chocks from a moving conveyor when he had an accident. The chock stuck in the convayor as he picked it up and the forward force of the moving belt pushed the chock upward with my uncle's hand holding the other end. His fingers was crushed between the chock and the rails which were above the belt. He said there was so much force that the wood split and the whole machine jammed up and he was stuck there. He lost one finger and half of another.

For anybody interested, the National Park Service established the Blue Heron Mining exhibit near Stearns, Ky. The original coal processing plant was refurbished and ghost buildings built to show how the old mine camp used to be. Just look it up online and maybe make a visit someday.

We refer to these as tipples or preparation plants in the Bituminous coal regions in West Virginia and Kentucky. I work at a coal mill, we grind coal into powder in a similar consistency to talc or baby powder, and sell it to some big name tire and rubber companies, it’s absolutely filthy work, but it pays well and like the breaker in the video we suffered a fire that crippled the plant for almost a year. People don’t realize how hot coal can actually burn when it gets set off.

Reminds me, my grandfather told me about his time at a coal plant. The train would come and mechanically be triggered to dump thousands of pounds worth. He remembered once a hitchiker mistakenly was riding along, and they frankly had no way to stop him from being crushed immediately by all the coal let alone the grinders past that

Shout-out to Breaker Brewing Co. In Wilkes-Barre. Great beers, food, and history to be observed about Breaker Boys and coal in the tap room.

I was at NRG coal plant outside of Rosenberg Texas several times, and the process is still much the same with better technology. It's pretty cool actually!

I used to explore the St. Nicholas, the Huber, the Locust Summit, and other breakers here in PA. All gone now. Watched some of the disassembly of the Huber. Very sad to see. I'd call them pretty hazardous if you're not paying attention, or just aren't too bright. Sometimes saw kids in them..when parents are that careless, property owners and lawyers get nervous- probably part of the reason they're gone. All that I entered were steel structures, not wood. Although plenty of coal around on all floors to burn. Slowly. I really miss them..tried to bring friends, all were sort of amazed and fascinated, even if it at first sounded like a weird way to spend an afternoon. Something you'd never forget. An amusement park is a contrived waste of time compared to things like this! It seemed more correct to think of it as a large machine, covered to resemble a building from the outside, rather than a building containing machinery.

Growing up I knew an old man in his 90s who was a breaker boy when he was young.

The way they processed coal on conveyor belts, reminds me of the conveyor belts in the fruit packing houses. My two aunt's, Elsie and Louise worked in the packing houses up in Sacramento while in their teens. I use to work in a industrial laundry in my early 20's, and they had conveyor belts in one laundry I worked at, it was called Hospital Linen Supply, and was on North Broadway here in Fresno, but it got torn down years ago when they put in the 41 freeway.

I live in North East PA and this is some great history from our area! Thank you!