By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
During the holiday season, children often get teased about the possibility of getting coal from Santa Claus. While that is the last thing children are hoping for, up until recently, many adults wouldn’t have minded a lump of coal.
Coal didn’t always have a bad reputation as a Christmas gift option, however. Today, it would be the equivalent to a discount on an electricity bill. Imagine competing in a contest with coal as the prize. That’s just what happened at a family picnic for National Machinery employees in 1923 – the winner of a horseshoe pitching contest won a ton of coal. Likewise, when the Seneca County Museum was donated to the city in 1942, “a supply of coal was placed in the bins as part of the gift.”
Taken from the National Servicemen’s News Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 5, which is digitized on the Seneca County Digital Library, the caption says, “These photos are a reminder to check your anti-freeze, storm windows and coal supply”.
For a quick period in time, coal was concerned “modern”. Between fireplaces with open flames from burning wood and the central heating systems we now use, coal was the main source of power and therefore highly valued.
Into the early 1800s, coal was a “niche fuel” used only by skilled tradesmen, such as blacksmiths. But as more and more settlers came, Ohio continued to become deforested as settlers chopped down trees for both building structures and to use as heat in fireplaces.
But since coal is a natural resource not found in Northwest Ohio, it wasn’t until after both the railroads and canal systems were built that Seneca County residents and their neighbors could begin the switch to coal. The canals helped coal mines and producers near rivers transport their loads. Likewise, the railroads allowed “land-locked” mine operations move its coal products.
In Fostoria, the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad and Atlantic & Lake Erie hauled coal from southeastern Ohio to Toledo and around Lake Erie. Tiffin received coal from Pennsylvania through the Tiffin & Eastern Railroad.
The first coal yard in Tiffin appeared in 1865 was adjacent to the Baltimore & Ohio railroad depot.
The Junior Home also had its own coal yard, which supplied enough coal for the entire campus (for awhile, coal deliveries from the railroads were the largest cargo shipments made to the grounds). The coal was also used for two large generators to produce electricity.
Outside of Tiffin, rural residents could visit William Omwake, who operated the Iler’s Brick & Tile Factory, which dually served as a coal yard plus a lumber & cider mill.
When the infamous flood wrecked havoc on the area in March 1913, the only bridge that was spared within 16 miles had been weighted down with loaded coal cars at the time the heavy rains began.
A heavy duty coal tipple was one of the products that Webster Manufacturing patented to help make the process of unloading coal from railroad cars easier.
Unloading the coal took an extensive system to make sure the commodity could be transferred. One Junior Home kid recalls in the Homekid December 1992 edition, “The task was to open the railcars’ chute and allow the coal to flow out of the bottom of the cars and into the big White Motor Car dump truck that had been carefully positioned between the concrete supports for that purpose. This unloading detail was especially frustrating in the winter after a freezing rain had caused the top layer of coal to stick together and required a heavy object to crush this shell to fully empty the car.”
Webster Manufacturing developed and improved upon belt conveyors originally used for grain elevators. Because of its invention of the Perkins pivoted bucket carrier, patented in 1906, which handled coal for power plants, the Tiffin plant was opened the same year due to the new demand for the product.
Before motor vehicles, wagons would pick up coal at the stockyards and make deliveries to individual customers. In addition to being listed as a blacksmith and wagon maker in the 1896 Seneca County Business Directory, George Griffin is also listed as a dealer in hard and soft coal, coke and blacksmith coal. Other local businesses included Smith’s Coal & Ice and the Heilman Brothers, who were manufacturers and dealers of brick, drain tile, and sewer pipes in addition to both hard and soft coal.
The driver of a coal supply truck greets spectators during the U.S. Bicentennial Parade in Tiffin in June 1976. Coal was still produced in large amounts until the federal Clean Air Act was passed in 1970.
Later, hauling trucks replaced wagons. In Bettsville in the early 1920s, the Craun Transportation Company used a Model T Ford truck with a dump box in the back to haul coal for locals.
Fireplaces may have worked well for chilly spring and fall days or mild winter days, but people still had to bundle in layers and sit close to the fire on bitterly cold days as the heat of the fire escaped through the chimney (aka Santa’s doorway). Coal stoves weren’t an easy sell, however, since wood could easily be obtained for free in one’s own backyard (in 1950, coal cost $20-$25 per ton per delivery). Salesmen had to do demonstrations to show how quickly coal could heat a room. “In a letter promoting coal, a Philadelphia publisher boasted it (the coal stove) kept his room a toasty 60 degrees Fahrenheit during chilly months.”
But once the convincing was made, residents of Seneca County took to the switch. It was convenient as people no longer had to do the hard labor of retrieving their own heat source with an ax. The Ohio Stove Company was once a successful business at 62-64 North Monroe Street in Tiffin, which operated from 1863-1913. Founder J.S. Yerk sold his stoves and other iron utensils (pots & pans) in several states.
Besides heating a home and cooking, coal was (and sometimes still is) used for electricity. The Edison Electrical Illuminating Plant opened in Tiffin in December 1883 becoming the first coal-fired power plant in Ohio. Although electricity was “around”, it wasn’t widely used in this area right away. Through the 1930s, and beyond, coal production continued to climb in Ohio. It wasn’t until the Rural Electrification Project in the 1930s that many people in the area even gave electricity a thought, so coal continued to be used for oil lamps and other light fixtures and the Tiffin Lantern Works made coal oil jugs.
Coal production reached its peak in 1970 when the Federal Clean Air Act passed. Today, Ohio still produces coal, but to a much more restricted degree. You can tell if your old home once used coal. There could be an abandoned chimney in the original kitchen or a coal bin in the basement. Who knows, Santa may have left behind some coal!
Works cited:
Seneca County Museum Newsletter Spring 1992. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/42414
Third Annual Heritage Festival 1817-1981. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/27513
National Machinery 100 Years. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/32969
Souvenir Flood Views, Tiffin (Ohio) March 25, 1913. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/221
Junior Homekid December 1992. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/47706
Webster Manufacturing 75th Anniversary. Seneca County Digital Library.
Webster Manufacturing Car Mover Bulletin 60E. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/38591
Seneca County Business Directory 1896. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/23248
Pamphlet-Sidewalks Streets and Alleys-Iron Horse Days. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/51858
Fostoria Centennial Souvenir Program and History, 1954. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/31551
Historical Sketches of the Churches and Schools of Tiffin, Ohio. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/63795
History of Bettsville, Ohio. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29643
Village of Iler. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/40807
“History of Coal Mining in Ohio.” GeoFacts no. 14. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey.
“History of the Coal Yards”. Xenia Gazette. Nov. 14, 2015. https://www.xeniagazette.com/2015/11/14/history-of-the-coal-yards/
Kibbel, Bill. “The History of Coal Heating”. Old House Blog. Old House Web. https://www.oldhouseweb.com/blog/the-history-of-coal-heating/
Thompson, Clive. When Coal First Arrived, Americans Said ‘No Thanks.’ Smithsonian Magazine, July/Aug. 2022. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/americans-hated-coal-180980342/
Yale University. “Rise of Coal in 19th Century United States”. Energy History Teaching Unit. https://energyhistory.yale.edu/units/rise-coal-19th-century-united-states