Deepest Vertical Shaft in the Entire Anthracite Region

Does anyone have information about the greatest vertical shaft depth of any mine in the entire anthracite region? I was told by several old miners that shaft depths reached over 2000 vertical feet in some Wyoming Valley mines. I can't remember which ones.

The deepest shaft in the wyoming basin was the South Wilkes-Barre shaft of the Glen Alden Coal Company. I don't remember the depth but it was well over 1,000 feet.

Thanks for the info. I should have stated my question differently. The industry owes a lot to the Welsh miners who were pioneers in the PA anthracite fields.

Is there no PA anthracite historian who has knowledge of the shaft depths of the various mines?

There are many threads on this forum dealing with anthracite quality. The deeper down the coal veins, the better the quality as they say. The deep veins were subject to more compression driving out the impurities.

Mike would probably qualify as one of the few here as a historian.

I believe the south wilkes-barre shaft was the deepest one in the Northern Field at 1,800 feet. Something is telling me though that the Dundee shaft was 2,000 feet deep but I don't remember were I saw that. There were deeper shafts than those in the Southern field.

The repository for this information used to be the Wyoming Historical and geological Society. It's now called the Luzerne County Historical Society. I'll try to contact them.

I always thought that the deepest veins were underneath the Wyoming Valley. Can you be more specific as to where the deep shafts were in the southern fields?

the middle creek shaft in the southern field near tremont I have been told is the deepest. its around 2500 feet. in the northern field I don't think they got over 1500, the coal doesnt go that deep, except maybe where mike mentioned in the extreme southern end of the wyoming basin. heres a little chart I created showing the relation of the veins in the lackawanna and wyoming basin of the northern field, unfortunately for this discussion I don't have depth listed. one trip to the office of surface mining could answer the question though.

Wyoming Basin --------------------------------------- Lackawanna Basin

No. 4
No.3
Shake Island
Abbot ----------------------------------------------------- 8 Foot
Kidney ---------------------------------------------------- 5 Foot
Hillman ---------------------------------------------------- 4 Foot
Diamond -------------------------------------------------- Diamond
Rock -------------------------------------------------------- Rock, Checker
Baltimore -------------------------------------------------- Pittston, 14 Foot, Big
New County ----------------------------------------------- New County, Marcy
Ross -------------------------------------------------------- Clark
Top Red Ash ---------------------------------------------- Dunmore 1
Middle Red Ash ------------------------------------------ Dunmore 2
Bottom Red Ash ------------------------------------------ Dunmore 3
Dunmore 4 ------------------------------------------------- China

The wyoming basin is a deeper basin than the lackawanna thats why the lackawanna is missing the first 3 beds. there are multiple splits of the diamond, rock, baltimore, and clark seams.

The Bast Colliery shaft at Big Mine Run was 1,159 feet deep.

One way to tell if the shaft was deep was to look at the sheave wheels on the headframe. The greater the diameter, the deeper the shaft. In 1918, four sheave wheels were installed on the headframe at the Pine Knot Colliery in the Heckscherville Valley. They were hailed as the largest diameter in the Anthracite Region.....22 feet.

tdemps wrote:The Bast Colliery shaft at Big Mine Run was 1,159 feet deep.

One way to tell if the shaft was deep was to look at the sheave wheels on the headframe. The greater the diameter, the deeper the shaft. In 1918, four sheave wheels were installed on the headframe at the Pine Knot Colliery in the Heckscherville Valley. They were hailed as the largest diameter in the Anthracite Region.....22 feet.

That's incredible. However, I don't understand why they would have needed such huge sheaves, as tall as a house. Maybe you're confusing the sheaves with the winding drums? Below is a photo of the winding drums (no sheaves needed) at the South Deep Gold Mine in South Africa. They are 23.3 feet in diameter. South Deep is the world's deepest vertical shaft at about 9,850 feet.

**Broken Image Link(s) Removed**

hey tom, this what youre referring to? I was also told that the relation of the sheave diameter was relative to the shaft depth, but also the heist drum would be larger too. larger heists had cone style drums to give more power starting the cage then more speed as rope wound around it as it got closer to the top. at our mine, the sheave is around 2 feet in diameter and we are down 315 feet.