COAL MINING

Early Grand Ledge settlers noticed coal veins in the sandstone ledges. coal mining began here in the 1870's and lasted into the 1940's.

A historian in 1880 wrote:
A fine quality of soft coal for use as fuel is mined near Grand Ledge, although scarcely paying to produce for a home market, timber being yet so plenty.  The vein averages from eighteen inches to two and a half feet in thickness, and on the farm of W.J. Babcock, north of Grand Ledge, near the county line; it has been found three feet in thickness.  Mr. Babcock has mined more extensively than any other person in the vicinity, and at one time shipped large quantities to Detroit, Ionia, and Grand Rapids.  He says it will yield 6000 tons per acre on his farm.  The coal on his place is about sixty feet below the surface, yet he does not have to shaft to reach it and a natural" /> drainage is obtained to the river.  A vein has been recently opened on the south side of the river, west of the village, and is eighteen inches thick and of superior quality for fuel.

Michigan has small deposits of coal, although many of the coal deposits are in thin seams, and not economically valuable for that reason. The prehistoric swamp forests stored many forms of usable wealth. The sands at the bottom of the swamp, now hardened into sandstone, are a prominent reservoir for fresh water in central Michigan counties. The trees of the forest died, were buried, and became the coal of the Saginaw valley, Grand Ledge, Shiawassee, Ingham, and Jackson counties. The coal is a bit difficult to use in the ordinary furnace, but with the proper type furnace and proper firing methods, it burns well. The bituminous (soft) coal produced worked well for lights and as fuel to power locomotives and
large factory engines.

In Grand Ledge coal mines were found on both sides of the river, including near the railroad trestle and along West Jefferson. One mine, under the property of Dr Stanke near the intersection of West Jefferson and West Scott streets, was even responsible for damage to his home as the ground sank due to the coal operation beneath it. The Babcock mine, noted above, may have been the longest in operation and perhaps the most productive. The mine on the Babcock farm, now the Haueter farm on Tallman Road was in operation over 60 years and used both slope and vertical shafts.

Grand Ledge's mines included slope and vertical mines. Most mines were a slope mine along the river bank where the miners walked into the ground, then on an incline to the coal seam. Some of the mines, however, were entered down a vertical shaft. The mines snaked haphazardly, following the largest deposits of coal.

Once the men were underground they lit lard lamps. Beneath their feet pools of water covered the floor. The air was rank, despite ventilation shafts. The galleries created as the coal was mined were reinforced with timbers. In the galleries the miner walked stooped over. Reaching the seam where the last mining had occurred, he chipped away at the base of the seam and then drove a wedge between it and the limestone ceiling to break out the coal. Many times miners chipped away at the coal seamwhile laying on their bellies in wet mud that made up the floors of the mines.