Originally published in the Pacific Coast Bulletin, April 28, 1924

This photo is from the 1925 P.T.A. visit to Briquetville, near today’s Gene Coulon Park.
Briquet Plant data of interest to you
This plant was opened in 1914 and has run continuously since that time. It operates two shifts of eight hours each and produces five hundred tons of briquets a day. That means that over one and one-half million briquets are made each day.
Camp welcomes you
Through Mrs. Julius Johnson, president Newcastle Circle of the Parent-Teacher Association, its membership numbering 51, joins with the entire camp and the company officials in welcoming the visiting P.T.A. members of King County today. We want you to see the mine and the camp of which we are so proud, and when you leave us, above all, we want you to remember your trip to Newcastle and that your return will be welcomed.
The briquets are made from a combination of Black Diamond and South Prairie coals. The first of these give it its free burning quality and low ash and the last, a coking coal, gives it its strength and fire holding power. The binder used is a specially prepared form of asphalt from which the stickiness has been removed.
The trip through the plant will be in the direction in which the coal is run, beginning at the point where the raw coal is received and ending at the point where the finished briquet goes into the railroad cars.
First, will be seen the unloading hoppers through which the fresh coal will be flowing from the railroad cars. From here the coal goes to the top of the high timber structure known as the “Raw coal bunker.” Through this it is fed down by gravity and in the exact proportion required into the two steel box conveyors which run from this bunker into the steel building ahead, known as the “Dryer Building.”
Before leaving the raw coal bunker, by stepping up the first flight of steps may be seen the “measuring” conveyors which portion out the two grades of coal as the housewife measures the ingredients of a cake. (more…)
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