People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — Dogs of the Mines. [ARTICLE]

Dogs of the Mines.

Many of the hills about Pittsburgh are pierced with horizontal shafts admitting to the rich deposits of bituminous coal, and for many years there has been a race of hardy dogs employed as beasts of burden in these mines. A team of two dogs will gallop out of the mine, dragging after them over the narrow gauge tramway a Kittle car laden with many hundred pounds of coal. To the stranger who visits one of these mines it is somewhat alarming to hear behind him the rumble of the car, accompanied by the quick steps of the dogs, for the creatures are sometimes fierce, and the man who should find himself in the way might fare ill. The guide, however, always finds a place of refuge, and the invisible team rolls by in the darkness, leaving the stranger unharmed.