PARIS -- Mention mining in Arkansas, and Crater of Diamonds will likely come to mind. Or perhaps bauxite, the vital (particularly during World War II) aluminum ore that gave its name to a community near Little Rock.
But Arkansas was also once a busy coal mining state. That heritage is preserved at the Paris-Logan County Coal Miners Memorial and Museum, 120 miles northwest of Little Rock.
The attraction, a labor of love by local volunteers, evokes an era between 1880 and the middle of the 20th century when as many as 3,000 coal miners labored around here.
Among the numerous objects displayed in the one-room museum is a sticking tommy. A whimsical name that's a mystery to most of us, it's "one of the earliest forms of light for coal miners" before the harnessing of electricity.
As the display explains, "A 'sticking tommy' or miner's pick is a candle in a forged holder with a hook to hang on the front of the hat, or the pointed end could be stuck into a crevice in the rock. Used between 1880-1910."
Among the museum's myriad objects, most of them donated by former miners or their relatives, are dozens of lamps and other artifacts, including a tin that held blasting caps. A panel notes that the local product, known as Paris smokeless coal, was a semi-anthracite variety of high quality.
In front of the museum is a sculpture dedicated in 2009, a life-size bronze statue of a miner with a carbide light strapped to his forehead, a shovel in hand and a lunch bucket at his feet. Set into stone around the sculpture are plaques bearing some names of those who worked, owned and operated the mines.
Vintage mine equipment displayed near the memorial includes a mine shaft air fan -- a reminder of how important fresh circulation was, even in relatively shallow mines like these. Next to the museum, a replica blacksmith's shop exhibits an anvil dating to 1847.
As the memorial and museum's website explains, "The Paris coal field is a symmetric basin of coal lying under Short Mountain and Horseshoe Mountain. It is about 8 1/2 miles long and 21/2 miles wide."
The first coal mine near Paris opened in 1881. The arrival of a railroad line around the turn of the 20th century made mining on a larger scale profitable. Paris coal was prized because "it is remarkably free from impurities and burns with a clear white ash. It is unexcelled for heat-producing qualities."
World War II brought the last prosperous period for Logan County mining, when the standard day wage for an eight-hour shift was $7.50. By the 1950s, the coal vein was playing out, rail service ended around Paris and clean-air laws led industries to switch to gas furnaces.
The last working mine in the area, operated by W.T. Hixson, closed in 1964. It shut down after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took the land under eminent domain as part of a navigation project on the Arkansas River.
Now the memorial and museum give visitors glimpses of a time when coal reigned as king of Logan County's economy.
The Logan County Coal Miners Memorial and Museum, 840 S. Elm St., Paris, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Monday. Admission is free; donations are welcome. For more information, call (479) 963-6463 or visit coalmemorial-paris-ar.com.
Weekend on 10/02/2014