Miners lead tours and our guide George spent 27 years as a miner his periodic breathlessness indicates one of the hazards of the job. We did not descend into the mine but were shuttled along on an authentic "man cars" while seated we were only inches from the mine roof.

We enter the passageway and hear water dripping it is cold enough to wear a light jacket. George stops the car, he says this is the "claustrophobic stop" and if anyone wishes he will take them back; no one moves, he returns his seat and we continue on.

I did not feel claustrophobic, but this was a sanitized mine. It is one thing to travel with a group of tourists and another to actually mine in deep dirty conditions. I thought of the miner working in crouched positions semi isolated from his crew depending totally on his personal lamp. Then I had a claustrophobic moment.

We were driven in what turned out to be a loop 1500ft beneath the hill with stops at various sections where George explained the displays. He demonstrates the use of the miner’s most important tool the safety lamp. This safety lamp was invented in 1815 by Sir Humphrey Davey and was a great aid in improving the safety of the miners. Mines still use a modern version of that lamp to check for gasses each shift.

During the second stop he explains the role of the Fire Boss and points out the fireboard. This board is signed prior to each shift if the fire bosses signature is missing the men do not work
Next he displays the metal tag the miners use to mark their cars in order to be paid and to indicate attendance. In the early days miners were paid 20 cents per car and were expected to load ten cars per day.

He points out the miner worked 12 -16 hrs shifts; they did not have it easy. George demonstrated with pick & shovel how they dug rock and dirt from beneath a meter- wide seam, they then sat on the ground, a flat metal bar pushed against their chests to provide leverage they drilled individual holes with an auger, loaded the hole with a gunpowder shot wrapped in waxed paper. George said, " You then yell, 'Fire! Fire! Fire in the hole!' and you hustle on out of there. In fact you've got very, very little time to get out"

We emerge forty five minutes later into bright sunshine and I think of my grandfather who was killed in a mine in Nova Scotia. {age 39} leaving behind 7 children. I have great respect for those men.

Now for fun! Most folks know that early miners took canaries down with them to warn of methane gas buildup. Charlie, our guide, knew more: men bought canaries from the Company Store, of course, at a cost of 75-cents in an era when that figure amounted to a half-day's salary. Wanting to save, some miners used chickens. Only problem was that chickens can tolerate more methane than humans, so in Charlies’s words, "When humans keeled over, the chicken knew it was time to get out!" Other stories presented workers as "inventive losers," who missed out on millions by neglecting to get patents.

Once he had our attention, Charlie demonstrated by installing different types of roof bolts. The best one utilized a glue made by Dupont, an item everyone wanted to buy at the Company Store! (Anything that held up four feet of stone could be useful at home.) We saw demonstrations with chest augers, scooters, dust-catchers (for lack of a better word), loaders, imaginary explosives, and antique helmet lights--now valuable. Nothing required us to get out of our carts on rails. Only Charlie had to walk on the sometimes wet floor while we watched from our Epcot-style vantage-point, padded seats. As we learned the entire historic process of extracting a seam of coal, we asked questions. Yes, children worked in early mines, mostly to lead mules, blind from being left underground 24 hours a day. Most of what we heard about sociological issues confirmed that the industry’s abuses paralleled those of English coalfields described by D. H. Lawrence.

This tour brought us to the 1930’s. The mine, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, actually operated from 1890-1916 with no name but "the Phillips family mine." Some of the equipment demonstrated would not have been invented yet at the time of this mine’s operation, but was added to extend the historic process to the beginning of the modern era. Typical of low-seam family operations at the turn of the century, this attraction, owned by the city of Beckley since 1953, is an important heritage site. Its location under Beckley’s New River Park is marked with signs from I-77 Exit 44, Harper Road. Tours are conducted April through October.