St. Clair Coal Company.
Biographical notes:
The St. Clair Coal Company was a medium-sized independent anthracite producer located near Saint Clair, Schuylkill County, Pa.
The St. Clair Coal Company was incorporated in 1895 with William Henry Taylor as president and W. W. Patterson as superintendent. The company took over the lease of the Eagle Colliery, owned by the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company, under a so-called "percentage contract". The Coal & Iron Company marketed the entire output at a fixed percentage of the selling price. The Supreme Court ruled such contracts to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1912. Thereafter, the company sold most of its coal through brokers in New York and Philadelphia.
Under William T. Smyth, who became general superintendent in 1900, the company constructed a new breaker and began strip mining at Saint Clair. His son, Harold W. Smyth, formed a holding company, the H.W. Smyth Company, and purchased the company from the Taylor estate in 1932. The final confirmation of the sale was not made until 1955. H. M. Smyth died in 1956, at a point when the anthracite industry was in complete collapse because of the loss of home heating markets to oil and natural gas. His wife took over the company and closed up its affairs. Production ceased in October 1957. The Saint Clair Coal Company was formally dissolved in March 1979.
The subsidiary Schuylkill Supply Company, Inc., operated a company store for St. Clair Coal Company employees.
From the description of Records, 1893-1979. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122397242
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Subjects:
- Anthracite coal industry
- Coal mine accidents
- Coal miners
- Coal mines and mining
- Industrial accidents
- Lung
- Mine accidents
- Occupational diseases
- Strip mining
- Workers' compensation
Occupations:
Places:
- Pennsylvania (as recorded)
- Schuylkill County (Pa.) (as recorded)
