Acknowledgement
About Footnotes
Maps
OK, OK, Let Me Read the Article Already!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This article would not be possible without the assistance and encouragement of the late Richard Keller. Although we were not related, Rich and I were kindred spirits when it came to exploring the remote recesses of the East Broad Top's long abandoned branchlines. Rich generously provided photocopies from ICC valuation sheets of the Rocky Ridge Branch, as well as the invaluable notes on the EBT's early corporate business meetings made by George Hart in the 1960s and his own notes on the early history of this fascinating corner of the EBT "empire." Without his help (and constant nagging) this article would not have been completed.
Coal mining in the Rocky Ridge area northwest of the south portal of the EBT's Wrays Hill Tunnel dated from the earliest years of the railroad's arrival in the Trough Creek Valley. John Dougherty, who had been an early and ardent promoter of the EBT, opened a mine on the Fulton seam on the east slope of Rocky Ridge, "about a mile north of the railroad" in 1876. Dougherty apparently requested the EBT to build a branch to connect to his mine, but the railroad's directors turned him down, "stating that land owners could do the same and haul coal cars by horsepower." Rebuffed, Dougherty took matters into his own hands and by the following year a tramway linked the mine to the EBT mainline west of Wrays Hill Tunnel, and "20-30 tons a day" were being produced. Eventually the Dougherty mine's output -- and, no doubt, the attraction of charging Dougherty an extra mile-per-ton haulage -- led the Rockhill Iron & Coal Co. to lease the tramway from 1884 through 1891. Production apparently ceased after that; the mine was "left derelict and soon filled with water."(R&K, 44. Hart Notes, 2/7 & 3/13/1876)
A few miles north, the EBT's reluctance, or financial inability, to build the proposed Rocky Ridge Branch prevented the railroad from earning significant coal-hauling revenue. George Sleeman, "the only operator to approach the size of the RI&C Co.," began mining the Fulton seam on Shirley's Knob in 1881. Finding the quality of coal there to be "unsatisfactory," he discovered a "fine seam over four feet thick [on] the northeastern slope of Rocky Ridge." The Sleeman mine operated under various operators until 1903 and was apparently a major producer by local standards, producing 19,000 tons in 1890 alone. Unfortunately for the EBT, most of the coal from this mine was "sledded away by individual purchasers ... from as far away as the Tuscarora Valley." The reference to sleds indicates that, due to the poor roads in this still-remote corner of Pennsylvania, shipment was restricted to the winter months when snow covered the frozen, rutted roads. (R&K, 77)
One can only wonder how access to all-weather rail transportation would have affected the productivity and longevity of the Sleeman mine. One of Sleeman's major customers was to have been the Pittsburgh White Sand Co. in Mapleton, on the PRR between Mt. Union and Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. An investment group from New York planned a standard gauge railroad, the Hare's Valley, south from Mapleton, "via Cassville and the Sleeman mines, to Saltillo and from there on to Hancock, Maryland." Despite the impracticability of building a line through the miserable terrain between Saltillo and Mapleton, the Hare's Valley "went on to acquire a half dozen parcels of right-of-way before the inevitable sheriff's sale in 1907." If this short-lived incursion by New York interests into PRR territory caused a ripple in Philadelphia, there is no evidence of it.(R&K, 77-79)
In the meantime, events were transpiring that would finally induce the EBT to open the Rocky Ridge coal field to rail service. In 1903, a Baltimore firm, the Rocky Ridge Coal Mining Company, reopened the derelict Dougherty mine and built another tramway, "probably along the route of the earlier Dougherty tram." Although production averaged "less than 12,000 tons a year," the EBT apparently rebuilt the Dougherty Siding to handle the traffic. MAP OF DOUGHERTY SIDING AREA The RRCM operated the old Dougherty mine through 1907 and it continued under the name "Jacobs & Glazier" in 1909, but production that year totaled less than 6000 tons and it was apparently closed for good after that. This small operation, alone, was not enough to induce the EBT to build a branchline. It fell to a Huntingdon, Pennsylvania merchant to create the conditions that would finally bring the much-discussed Rocky Ridge Branch into being.(R&K, 79, 240)
As we have seen from the discussion on the Sleeman mines, the main problem faced by the individual coal operators in the upper Trough Creek Valley at the turn-of-the-century was the lack of reliable, all-weather transportation to market. Without rail transportation, they were dependent on the cost prohibitive wagon and sled trade. The EBT, allied as it was to the RI&C, was not in a position to encourage the development of competing coal operations in the Broad Top region by offering free access to rail transportation. In 1876 and, again, in 1884, the railroad's directors denied requests to build a branch to the "Rocky Ridge Coal Basin," preferring, instead, that independent operators develop their own rail connections to the EBT mainline, as the Dougherty's and the RRCM had done. Individually, "none [of the operators] could offer sufficient inducement" for the EBT to build a branch. R.W. Jacobs, the Huntingdon merchant mentioned previously, solved that problem in 1903 by consolidating all of the independent coal properties in the area (except the by then insignificant Dougherty mine) under the Broad Top Coal & Mineral Co. (Hart Notes, 3/13/1876, 4/15/1884. R&K, 79)
Jacobs chartered the BTC&M Co. on August 21, 1903, merging the Sleeman holdings into the corporation and acquiring or leasing other small coal properties that constituted a respectable coal field under Rocky Ridge about midway between the Wrays Hill Tunnel and the village of Cassville. Jacobs had apparently coordinated these moves with the EBT; a month earlier, President Robert Seibert had already reported a "survey plan and profile made from Rocky Ridge Siding to Shirleys Knob [near Evanston]," a distance of 4.93 miles from EBT Milepost 25.6 (the point-of-frog of the switch at survey point 1413.99, just west of the Rocky Ridge station). At the same time, the EBT's directors approved a resolution to "procure a charter" for a railroad from Dougherty Siding to Cassville "contingent upon parties along the line furnishing timber and crossties and [a] deposit of $5500 to be made." With such a commitment from BTC&M, the EBT moved forward and, on June 28, 1904, the directors authorized Seibert to construct the line as far as Cassville at a cost not to exceed $20,000. Despite a geologist's report that there were "not enough quantities of coal and clay to justify" the line, the EBT went ahead with its plans; by December the branch was "ready for contractors" and Seibert reported that the car shops would have "30-40" new coal cars ready by the time the branch was ready for operations. These were most probably wooden 22,400 lb. capacity copies of the original Billmeyer & Smalls design that formed the mainstay of the EBT coal car fleet until the advent of steel hoppers in 1913. Rainey & Kyper report 44 coal cars were built in the year ending June 30, 1905. (R&K, 79, 225. Hart Notes, 7/29/03, 10/7/1904, 12/22/1904)
The Rocky Ridge Branch "was completed on November 10, 1905" at a cost of just over $28,000. Interestingly, the cost recorded in the directors, minutes was $20,000, the same amount authorized. Perhaps the difference was represented by BTC&M's initial $5500 deposit and cost overruns. In keeping with business practices acceptable at the time, but questionable by today's standards, Jacobs, himself, was one of the contractors who constructed the branch. Coal shipments began even before the branch was completed, with 100 tons a day shipped from the Glazier mine beginning in September, 1905. MAP OF ROCKY RIDGE RR TO GLAZIER "The next year, two drifts were opened at the new town of Jacobs and production passed 60,000 tons a year." Hoped-for fire clay shipments from BTC&M's pits on Shirleys Knob fizzled when the clay was found to contain too much iron; the mines at Jacobs marked the northern end of productivity on the Rocky Ridge Branch. It was never extended beyond Evanston to Cassville. MAP OF ROCKY RIDGE RR, CURFMAN TO EVANSTON One final question, that of corporate status, had to decided before the paper work was completed. In October, 1906, the EBT directors began considering the "legal question [of] whether [the] Rocky Ridge Branch Ry should be organized as [a] separate company" to protect the EBT from financial liability for the new venture. Two months later, they decided to do so and the Rocky Ridge Railroad, complete with "stock, bonds, directors, and a full slate of officers headed by Seibert as president," was formed on April 18, 1908. Of course, the new railroad "was immediately leased by the EBT for operation."(R&K, 79-80. Hart Notes, 10/1/1906, 12/21/1906)
Coal was the mainstay of the Rocky Ridge traffic. And there was a lot of it for the first 15 years of the branch,s existence. Although this is conjecture, it is possible that locomotive No. 10, a new Baldwin 4-6-0 delivered in 1906, was purchased to handle the new traffic. At the beginning of 1907, Seibert reported to the EBT,s Board of Directors that the Rocky Ridge Branch was yielding 225 tons of coal a day. That same year, the Baltimore-based RRCM shifted its operations from the old Dougherty mine to the new and "more productive Rays Hill mine on the south side of the EBT mainlineo/oo near the Rocky Ridge depot. In the next eleven years, this mine would ship 289,601 tons over the EBT. The best years for the Rocky Ridge coal mines fell between 1910 and 1914. The town of Jacobs boasted 60 houses, "a school, a church, and a post office" and output from the BTC&M's Jacobs mine passed 300 tons a day in 1910; in its peak year, 1912, it produced 82,500 tons. The tipple at Glazier, about a mile north of Rocky Ridge Junction, also probably loaded coal during this period under the control of the BTC&M corporation. ICC VALUATION SHEET, GLAZIER SIDING The RRCM Co. reached its pinnacle of 36,664 tons in 1914. In 1910, the Jacobs & Glazier concern, which had taken over the Dougherty mine (possibly shifting its loading from the tipple at Glazier siding) from RRCM in 1909, moved from there to Starr No. 1, closer to the EBT mainline and operated it under the almost-too-quaint name "Possum Hollow Coal & Coke Co." A small producer, Starr No. 1 passed to RRCM control after 1912. That mine and the RRCM's Rays Hill mine loaded cars at tipples on sidings on opposite sides of the EBT's main line near milepost 26, west of Rocky Ridge station.(Hart Notes, 11/23/1905, 1/14/1907. R&K, 71, 79-80, 86-87, 116, 214, 241)
Within a few years of the branch's opening, R.W. Jacobs and the EBT quarreled over the latter's repayment of the $5500 start-up loan. Apparently the money was to be repaid in the form of a rebate on coal shipments and Jacobs was not satisfied that the EBT was honoring the agreement. The dispute landed the two parties in court in 1909 and led Jacobs to seek another rail outlet. No regular trains were scheduled for the Rocky Ridge Railroad, traffic being handled by "irregular extras." The lack of regular passenger service was apparently a source of irritation among the miners working the Jacobs mine and the EBT,s half-hearted response of including some sort of passenger accommodation on the extras did little to foster good relations. According to Rainey & Kyper, this may have given further encouragement to Jacobs in his search for an alternative to the EBT. The standard gauge Juniata & Southern Railway Co., connecting at Marklesburg with the Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain Railroad, arrived in Jacobs in 1915. The BTC&M opened a new mine on the Barnett seam and built a new tipple, but the J&S was a financial basket case from its inception and "gave up the ghost" within two years after reaching Jacobs. The EBT built a spur to the former J&S tipple and the J&S was sold for scrap. ICC VALUATION SHEET, JACOBS For the Rocky Ridge coal operators, it was the EBT or nothing. (R&K, 108-109)
The good times did not last long in the Rocky Ridge area coal mines. In the boom-and-bust, strike-ridden years of the early 20th Century, the Rocky Ridge Coal Mining Co. did not survive the economic down-turn at the close of World War I and ceased operations permanently in 1918. Broad Top Coal & Mineral Co., having survived one bankruptcy after the death of R.W. Jacobs in 1913, could not weather the strikes and depression of 1920 when coal prices plunged from $9.50 to $3.00 per ton and declared final bankruptcy on March 14, 1922. Although the Rocky Ridge Branch continued to feed coal to the EBT in small amounts into the 1930s -- 3138 tons were shipped from the mines of F.A. Curfman and Crotsley & Thomas during 1935 -- the widespread flooding on St. Patrick's Day, 1936, spelled the end. ICC VALUATION SHEET, CURFMAN SIDING The trestle over Trough Creek between Jacobs and Evanston was badly damaged by the high water and was never repaired; the branch was allowed to deteriorate until it was unusable. By 1940, the only industries left on the branch were "Charles Crotsley's small mine near Jacobs and an occasional sawmill," all committed to truck transportation. The EBT's petitions to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission and the ICC for abandonment were approved and the branch was dismantled soon thereafter.(R&K, 125, 150, 155, 241)
Today, there are few remains of the Rocky Ridge Railroad or the coal mines and towns that it once served. The grade is relatively open from Rocky Ridge Junction to the site of Jacobs. The locations of the tipples at Sleeman and Jacobs are clearly evident, especially at Jacobs, where truck mining apparently continued for several years after the tracks were taken up. Although the Rocky Ridge Railroad's grade east of the Jacobs "highway crossingo" is a gated private drive, the sites of the J&S/EBT tipple and Jacobs Post Office are accessible. A large "boney" pile (waste material from the underground mine) and the field stone foundations of the post office remain for orientation.
The Rocky Ridge station, near the south portal of the EBT's Wrays Hill Tunnel, was still standing in 1991 -- albeit with its south wall gone. It has since collapsed totally, a pile of rotten timbers and stark brick chimney the only evidence that, for a brief moment in time, this was a busy spot on a bustling railroad. Near the western switch for the junction with the EBT mainline, a small opening is visible in the base of Rocky Ridge at grade level -- perhaps an access portal to Starr No. 1 mine or some operation predating even the EBT's arrival. For the adventurous explorer this area is still rich with the aura of a by-gone era.
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ABOUT FOOTNOTES: In preparing the text, I depended heavily on two sources. In the 1960s George M. Hart, first curator of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, transcribed some of the minutes from the EBT's corporate board meetings stored in the EBT's Orbisonia Station. His handwritten notes, filling 52 pages, covering the period from 1872 (before the first rail was laid) through 1907, have formed the basis of several of my previous articles on the EBT. I have continued to rely heavily on them to ensure chronological integrity in this effort. Where I refer to them in the text, they are noted after each paragraph as "HART NOTES, dd/mm/yyyy." The second major source for this article is East Broad Top, by Lee Rainey & Frank Kyper. Now in its third printing, by Golden West Books, San Martino, CA 91108, this book continues to be the definitive corporate, technical, and social history of the East Broad Top Railroad and the people who worked on or around it. References to the Rocky Ridge area are scattered throughout East Broad Top and I have tried to form them into a cohesive story about the branch itself for the information of the idly curious and the eager explorer. Where I refer to East Broad Top in the text, it is noted after each paragraph as "R&K, p. xyz."
GOT MAPS? This article is best read with maps available for ready reference. Six downloadable images of maps and ICC Valuation Sheets are available for you to download. I have inserted links to them at the appropriate places in the text that follows. You can wait until you reach each one in succession or you can download them before continuing.
Maps of the Rocky Ridge Area:
MAP OF DOUGHERTY SIDING AREA
MAP OF ROCKY RIDGE RR TO GLAZIER
MAP OF ROCKY RIDGE RR, CURFMAN TO EVANSTON
ICC VALUATION SHEET, GLAZIER SIDING
ICC VALUATION SHEET, JACOBS
ICC VALUATION SHEET, CURFMAN SIDING
The Rocky Ridge area of southern Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania is, today, some of the wildest, most remote country in the state. Drained by the swift, clear Trough Creek plunging through rocky, hemlock-lined gorges, it is accessible only by dirt roads and jeep trails. There is little evidence that, for a short time during America's frenetic industrialization in the early 20th Century, the steep ridges echoed to the sounds of chuffing steam locomotives, squeaking axles, and underground explosions as Nature temporarily yielded to man. Only a winding trail, the abandoned grade of the railroad that once tapped the mineral resources under Rocky Ridge and Wrays Hill, remain in mute testimony to the men, women, and children who lived there because there was coal and there were markets for it. A few scattered vacation homes and hunting cabins dot the hillsides where once a thriving town stood. It is through this beautiful and historically significant area that the narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad may once again roll, bringing tourists and students to see for themselves a place where their ancestors lived and toiled as small, but significant, cogs in the machinery of American capitalism.
