Archive of 99 original photographs of a mine sealing project at Kempton Mine, 1938-1940

N.p.: N.p., 1940. Archive of 99 vintage photographs documenting a mine sealing project in and around Kempton Mine in Kempton, Maryland. Likely taken at the behest of the Kempton Mine Company, the photographs are housed in an album, with captions detailing the nature of the work shown, location, and date. Photographs date between February, 1938, and April, 1940, and are arranged in groupings according to location, each usually followed by an abbreviated location signifier and a description of the work done.

Detailed inventory available upon request.

Archive presents many views of the work involved in the large-scale project, including masonry stopping, traps, and seals; clearing, cleaning, and loading fall; gob cleanup and seals; excavation and paving of creek beds; bridge construction; earth packing; drainage ditch digging; and timber setting and wall construction, among others. Archive also includes a map and an introductory photograph showing an overview of the mine and mining plant.

Straddling the border of Maryland and West Virginia at the North Branch Potomac River, the source of the Potomac, the town of Kempton was founded in 1913 as a company town for the Kempton Mine Company, a subsidiary of Davis Coal and Coke Company. Established to extract coal from the Upper Freeport Seam or Davis Vein, the richest vein in the Upper Potomac Valley, Kempton's Mine No. 42 was producing 250 to 300 tons of coal per day within just a few months of operation, with expectations that the shafts could see as much as 2000 tons per day for as many as 25 years. In 1922 the Maryland Geological Survey noted that the Kempton mine was "without doubt the most modernly equipped of all the coal mines in the state of Maryland."

On April 15, 1950, without prior notice, a proclamation was placed on the window of the company store announcing the closure of the mines within a week, making company script relatively worthless and forcing employees to seek work elsewhere. Within six weeks the pumps were shut off and Mine No. 42 was flooded with groundwater. By the 1970s Kempton had become a virtual ghost town, with only a small number of residents remaining in the few old company houses that remain standing. In the years since the closure, lack of maintenance on the abandoned mines allowed considerable amounts of acid mine drainage into the surrounding waterways, putting a significant strain on the local watershed. In 1977, partly in response to conditions at Kempton, Congress passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to regulate the environmental impacts of both active and abandoned coal mines.

Photographs: 7 x 6.25 inches to 9 x 6.75 inches. Very Good plus to Near Fine, some with light toning.

Photograph album: 15 x 11.25 inches. Very Good plus, with edgewear and some fraying at the corners, crown and heel.