Wilkinson Coal Company

William Wilkinson, born in Pelton Fell, England, in 1862, worked in the mines from age 10 and came to Weir City, Kansas, in 1883 at age 20 to continue mining. In 1917, he started his own deep mine a mile south of Fleming, Kansas. He and his wife, Mary, reared seven children—Raymond, Clifford, Morris, Cecil, Bernice, Bill, and Jack—and the siblings and their spouses were active in the mining business during their lifetimes. In 1923, the Wilkinson Coal Company opened another mine one mile north of Weir City. After William Wilkinson died in 1932, his sons continued the operation. Economic conditions and the advent of strip mining led to the closure of the deep mine, and Cecil left the family business to work for the Kelce Brothers at the Peabody Coal Company, formerly the Sinclair Mining Company, at Hume, Missouri. In 1935, strip mining had become more profitable, and the company bought a Marion Model #37 Steam Shovel from the Joe Klaner Coal Company in Detroit and moved it to southeast Kansas, where it operated until 1953. In 1938, a 222 Page Dragline was purchased and moved from Louisiana to Weir City, Kansas, where it was reassembled and put into operation. In 1953, a Walking 618 Page Dragline was purchased in Alexandria, Louisiana, and shipped by rail to Weir City for the strip mining operation; it was later used for clay mining by the Mission Clay Company. In 1963, a grass fire triggered an explosion in a powder magazine at the mine, injuring four people, including Mr. and Mrs. Morris Wilkinson and their son Bill, while fire departments from Pittsburg, Galena, Baxter Springs, Columbus, and Asbury responded. The explosion destroyed the tipple, machine shop, scale house, two storage buildings, and nine company trucks. Coal mining in Cherokee County continued until 1979, when EPA regulations requiring southeast Kansas coal to be blended with Wyoming coal for a cleaner blend made operations unprofitable. The Marion Model #37 Steam Shovel was later restored and preserved by the McNally Company and the Wilkinson Coal Company at the Crawford County Museum, and the 222 Page Dragline was restored and preserved at Big Brutus.

Pittsburg, Kansas · United States