Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1907 — HAS BURNED FORTY-FIVE YEARS [ARTICLE]

HAS BURNED FORTY-FIVE YEARS

A Coal Mine Fire to Which a Romance Attache*. On Paint creek, about twenty miles above Charleston,W. Ya., a coal mine fire is raging. At night the mountainside is ablaze with a weird play of light y by day a column of smoke ascends like a monument. In truth, the mountain is afire, an unquenchable fire, as those who have already lost $20,000 in a vain attempt to smother it will testify. In the late 50’s of the last century the Kanawha Coal and QU Company was

organized for the purpose of producing oil from cannel coal found in the mountains divided by Paint creek. The vein located was a comparatively thin one, lying in the heart of a thick seam of*ffie bituminous coal. The company was busy with its operations when the Civil War broke out, but continued at work for some time thereafter. The superintendent was a blunt old Englishman named Gordon, who had a handsome daughter, Rowena, who was the delight of her father's heart and the despair of the young men of the neighborhood. > There was the usual courting aqd flirting, ivi.th the usual final selection of one man and ths inevitable preparations for the wedding,

The lucky man was one Adkins, a nativs of the mountains, a strapping young fellow, who had won the father’s favor as a workmen even before he won The daughter’s esteem as a lover. Thus the course of true love seemed to run smooth. But the war came, and the Paint creek section was as badly torn by opposing factions as any other small part of the entire country. The natives were of the South, while most of those who had come to work in the mines were Union men. ,Of the latter was old man Gordon, while Adkins was a regular fire-eating son of Dixie. Adkins was forbidden to enter the Gordon home, and Rowena was ordered not to see him. He enlisted in the Confederate army and marched out with. Wise on his famous retreat up the valley. This was in the spring of 1861. In the autumn he returned home on a furlough and sought to renew amicable relations with the Gordons, but was repulsed by both father and daughter. It is said that in a spirit of revenge he set fire to the drumhouse of the tnouth of the mine. The fire was communicated to the rich vein of cannel coal inside, and, obtaining a good bold, has been burning ever since. Adkins returned to his regiment and was killed in battle. The Gordons left the country soon after, and their subsequent history is not known. _ In the late ’Bos a company was formed by Charleston men to extinguish the fire and reopen the mine, but, after spending $20,000 in a vain attempt, the enterprise was abandoned. It is probable that the fire will be allowed to burn until the entire vein of coal is consumed. Of late it has been burning visibly at night, the extent being perhaps 100 yards along the face of the mountain. The Helena, Mont., Record publishes a story to the effect that numerous Montana and Washington investors have been mulcted to the extent of more than a third of a million dollars through the discovery that certain placer mines near Lander, Wyo., had been salted and that the properties are worthless. The union labor city and county convention of San Francisco nominated a ticket headed by P. IL McCarthy, president of the Building trades’ Council, for Mayor. The other candidates named are the present officers. The program of exMayor Schmits was carried out to the letter.