This photo is of an actual shovel in use at an unknown mine somewhere in Clearfield County, PA. The machine is a Bay City shovel – the company is still in business, though doesn’t make this particular machine anymore. Based on the photo type, this was probably taken around the same time as the others (maybe a year or two later than the first two). You can see the machine is pretty beat up and had probably seen better days, something I’d pretty much expect for a coal mine. This is likely one of the many machines Leon based his toys on, having seen his uncles and neighbors go to work in various mines. The most common type of mining done in that area is Strip Mining, in which the ground is stripped away from the coal deposit, leaving behind what looks like a large inverted cone shape in the earth. Driving around, you can still identify old strip mines based on shape alone – any perfect, unnatural slope with trees planted at even intervals was likely once a strip mine. Between the physical scars, the environmental scars, and the emotional scars (families who saw the loss of loved ones from accidents, black lung, etc), coal mining leaves behind a pretty dark legacy throughout Pennsylvania. For my grandfather at the time though, it was a thing of wonder to see machines that large move the earth with such ease.
I can understand how the power and size of machinery would inspire a boy’s imagination. When there was no alternative, Coal was definitely the king of fuels.
I guess one of these days people will be writing about their ancestors who were forward thinking with their use of solar panels and wind turbines and ocean tide powered energy. Which reminds me I must get some good photos of me with my solar panels and some of my reduced coal-fired electricity bills and put them away for posterity !
Your Grandpa was a pretty good model maker! My husband has relatives who lived in Glen Hope, Clearfield Co.
I think young people are entranced by the engineering of many machines, and building working steam shovels is a great art for a young man to have achieved. Ditto your remarks about how mining leaves scars.