Originally published in the BDHS Bulletin, Winter 2016
By William Kombol
The town of Franklin was developed for coal mining and operated as a company town from around 1885 to 1922. At its peak there were approximately 1,100 people living and working in Franklin. The town’s beginning and purpose were linked to 50-million-year-old coal seams exposed along the deep gorge cut through bedrock.
Explorers discovered the coal while traveling through the Green River Gorge in the early 1880s leading to the founding of nearby Black Diamond. The Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad was extended from Renton to Franklin in 1885 allowing coal production to commence and the town to develop. The town was named for the famed American patriot, Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin had company-owned housing, a company store, post office, school, a Knights of Pythias hall, and two saloons to serve the 300-400 hundred coal miners who worked the mines.
The town was originally owned by the Oregon Improvement Company (OIC) and the first shipment of coal left Franklin in June 1885.
The early years were dominated by labor strife and mining disasters. In 1891, a series of labor disputes resulted in OIC recruiting African-Americans workers from the Midwest who rode trains with their families to Washington where they were promised good jobs. Instead they were to be strike-breakers.
Violence erupted that spring causing the National Guard to be deployed to restore peace following at least two deaths. Union efforts collapsed and some blacks left town. Three years later, on August 24, 1894, a tragic fire claimed the lives of 37 miners. It was the second worst coal mine disaster in Washington state history.
In 1896, the OIC was bought out by Pacific Coast Company, a conglomerate which eventually owned coal mines, railroads, steamships, briquette, and cement plants. Pacific eventually owned mines in Newcastle, Issaquah, Black Diamond, Carbonado, and Burnett.
Coal mining in Franklin expanded and by the late 1890s and early 1900s coal production was averaging nearly 200,000 tons per year. However, after 1908 coal output slumped and employment fell to less than 150 miners, except for one year during new mine development.
That mine called the Cannon eventually failed and by 1922 underground coal production ended, at least for the next decade.
Almost everyone moved out of town except for a few families who had purchased land and had small farms. When the company began selling nearby land, the area was referred to as Pacosco.
Several small mines attempted coal recovery in the mid-1930s but were not successful. During the World War II years the old Franklin mine was reopened and coal was produced, but the mining effort was judged a failure.
After the war, Palmer Coking Coal Company (Palmer) leased the properties and began surface mining combined with underground operations. In 1953, Palmer purchased the property and mineral holdings of the Pacific Coast Coal Company and continued underground mining in Franklin until 1971 and surface mining until 1981.
Over the first 100 years of operations, 4.15 million tons of coal were produced from the Franklin field. However, the area had one of the poorest safety records as 88 fatalities were recorded in the first four decades of mining.
In 1973, Washington State Parks acquired most of the old town site, vertical mine shaft, and cemetery as part of the Green River Gorge conservation area. In 1983, Green River Community College conducted an extensive historical and archaeological project under the leadership of Gerald Hedlund.
The site of the old town was investigated and a book, From Smoke to Mist: An Archeological Study of Franklin, WA – A “Turn of the Century” Company Coal Town (1994) was published.
Palmer continues to manage the resource lands of Franklin hill through forest harvests, reforestation, and a developed rock quarry.
Tours of Franklin are conducted twice each winter by the Black Diamond Historical Society, on the first weekends of February and March, when vegetation is dormant and remnants of the remaining foundation structures of this ghost town can be seen.
[…] Franklin: A short story by William Kombol, Winter 2016 The town of Franklin was developed for coal mining and operated as a company town from around 1885 to 1922. At its peak there were approximately 1,100 people living and working in Franklin. […]
LikeLike