Taggart, John K., 1851?-1896

John K. Taggart, a mining engineer, was born in Northumberland, Pa., around 1851.

Taggart became a protege of John Leisenring, a Mauch Chunk, Pa., coal operator, and was sent to the western Pennsylvania coke fields to manage Leisenring's Connellsville Coke & Iron Company in 1881. After this operation was sold in 1889, he returned to Northumberland to assist his father in his spike and nail factory, but in 1890 he was appointed superintendent of Leisenring's Virginia Coal & Iron Company. Moving to Big Stone Gap, he directed all the company's early field work, surveying land, perfecting titles, investigating markets, and designing mines and coke plant.

On May 23, 1896, while supervising the construction of some coke ovens, he was struck on the head by a rock from a misfired blast and instantly killed. His sons, John K. Taggart, Jr. (c. 1886-1962), and Ralph Enos Taggart (1887-1951), were both mining engineers and coal company executives.