Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Arensburg, PA. The Fayette Side Of The Crucible Ferry. A question.

Yesterday, Chip and I headed out to scout some new locations and enjoy the mid 60 degree temperatures of the end of January.  We hopped the ferry in Fredericktown and headed to the Fayette landing of the Crucible ferry.  Chip had it in his head to climb the huge waste piles from the Crucible mine (yea, we know the dangers) and take some pictures. When we got there, via walking north up the railroad tracks, we quickly decided this sounded better in theory then in reality, so we put that entry point on the back burner for now.  

Crucible mine slate dumps now

And.......

Then...1938.




Below, are two shots of the same area.  In the 1939 one, you can see the area open, and a building there.  In the 1959 shot, the area seems to be getting over grown and the building gone.
  
Hard to see here, but this old foundation runs to the river and is exceedingly large.
It's weird.  I've lived my whole adult life in Greene county, but know very little history from right across the river in Fayette county, and that was evident today as we walked the CSX tracks.  

About a tenth of a mile north of the ferry landing we ran into these ruins....








A little further up the tracks we ran into this.....




Obviously, some sort of pumping operation, but for what?  I know down the river at Ronco, an old water treatment plant existed years ago, but I think that serviced the town of Ronco.  There is really nothing around these old buildings/foundations.


The area in question is shown in this picture, taken in 1938.  You can see the Crucible mine on the Greene side w/ all its barges and buildings, but in the questioned area, it doesn't look like there is a whole lot going on.  




View of the old Crucible mine site from Fayette


And for you boaters, its basically behind the Omaha Beach area, as pictured here:



So, the question is, what in fact was this place once?   Any ideas?



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13 comments:

  1. ably sineFebruary 20, 2012 at 7:48 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Cyndee Crockard KniselyMarch 30, 2012 at 10:31 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. CyndeeMarch 30, 2012 at 10:41 PM

      Sorry, the above comment was mean't for the Rices Landing blog which was above this one when you click on February blogs.

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  3. AnonymousApril 4, 2012 at 5:45 PM

    I believe the area you are asking about was a distillery. Probably in the early 1900's
    Paul Thompson.

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    1. E T Williams 2April 4, 2012 at 6:33 PM

      Thanx for the idea, but I don't think it was that..I mean it could be, but I never heard of a distillery over there... I heard it was the remains of the old SWPA water plant, but I seem to doubt that too. I think it had something to do w/ the Crucible mine across the river....

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  4. UnknownApril 5, 2013 at 3:51 AM

    My Grandfather, C. Grimm, grew up in Crucible. Him and his father, David Grimm, worked at Crucible Mines.

    My grandfather had mentioned an old distillery as well, across the Mon. The feds shut down during the prohibition. But he said after that he said there were just a few houses on the Fayette Co. side of the ferry.

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    1. E T Williams 2April 13, 2013 at 9:33 AM

      Interesting. Went back down there a few days ago. I still can't find any info on the old county maps, but those only go to the 1940's. Maybe it was closed then and not drawn on the maps.

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  5. nekomJanuary 21, 2015 at 3:05 PM

    I've long wondered about this, I've seen the concrete ruins and noticed the mine dump on satellite maps. My best GUESS comes from a book I have on the Monongahela Railroad. There was a town very near here that never was named Sara(h?). A patch town, company store, shaft mine and everything else was built, then. WHOOPS. We don't really have the mineral rights to this coal. So the railroad line there was abandoned, the town scrapped and razed. The coal is said to have "probably" been subsequently mined by the Hustead-Seamens company in East Millsboro, probably to be turned into coke for the steel industry. Awful long way to ship the waste if this came from any mine in East Millsboro or Isabella, but conveyor belts have been around a long time.

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    1. E T Williams 2January 22, 2015 at 8:56 AM

      Interesting. I have heard of that towns name before, but thats about it. I need to research that. The piles close by the ruins came from across the river at the Crucible mines. Someone said this was some sort of water planet, but no one answered for certain. Thanks for your input!

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    2. AnonymousFebruary 15, 2015 at 5:11 PM

      I grew in Arensburg, in the sixties. We were always told that those ruins were the remnants of an old distillery. Chuck Kronk, who lived right above the ferry told us that.

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  6. RC200January 22, 2015 at 10:51 AM

    Any chance of going to the courthouse and looking at the deeds? That usually tells a story!

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  7. nekomJuly 23, 2019 at 6:07 PM

    How did their slate dump come to be on the other side of the river? Did Crucible have a conveyor belt across the river? Did the mine go under the river? (I know of at least two mines that did, so it's possible).

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    1. E T Williams 2July 23, 2019 at 6:10 PM

      After they filled up a lot of the space next to the mine, they strong a big cable across the river and basically filled in a gully. I think I have only seen one picture of this, and it's not very clear. But I have first-hand accounts of people when they were younger on the river remembering both the fairy and the cable car hauling the waste away

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