Jackson County IL Archives News.....GUS BLAIR A WEDGE-SLEDGE MINER WHEN 9 October 16, 1923 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Mary Riseling riseling@insightbb.com July 13, 2006, 7:36 pm Murphysboro Daily Independent October 16, 1923 Mayor Gus BLAIR of Murphysboro was born in 1871. Orphaned very early in life, he lived with his aunt, Mrs. John LAWSON. His ninth year found him a boy miner in the old Mt. Carbon Mining Co.'s No. 3 pit and "The Tunnel." He is another of our citizens who "came through" with Murphysboro from the old days to the new. All of his memories of the Mt. Carbon times in the late 70's and the 80's, Mr. Blair recalls most vividly of all the days away back there when Big Muddy River broke into the "Old Tunnel" and No. 2, which were operated together. The men were in the workings he said, when the river went through in a great whirlpool near the Mt. Carbon school. As it happened, no lives were lost. But as the men and boys forged their fearsome ways toward the place where they again hoped to see the light of day, the water was so deep that they met mine props floating towards them on the crest of the inpouring floor. Those were the days of "the wedge and the sledge" when Mt. Carbon miners would hoot the thought of the use of power to do their work for them, and could count a miner a man who could wedge and sledge down say three tons a day, and be thankful for his pay at the rate of 60 cents to $1.00 a ton, Mr. Blair recalls. The days were ten-hour days and long ones, with the hearty diggers of the time thinking little at all of working knee deep in the water of the pit. Mr. Blair also recalls distinctly the burning of the old Granny shops soon after he had entered his teens, and the keen sense of loss the Mt. Carbon and Murphysboro community felt at the time. These shops maintained the primitive engines and other rolling stock of the old Grand Tower & Texas, built as a coal road from Murphysboro to big coal dumps at Grand Tower in the early 70's and later extended to Grand Tower. When Mt. Carbon school boys of the time came to the "Fifth Grade" they came to the educational jumping off place, as the school did not go any farther, Mr. Blair declares. A boy was expected to have enough book learning and gumption by the time he left the fifth grade with honorable mention, to go ahead and get along and learn more as he got there. So it was that the present day Mayor Blair came to be a "Fifth Grader" and jumped off, as it were, to shift for himself when it came to getting more education. The age of twenty found him still a miner, but with night school learning added to that the little Mt. Carbon school afforded him. His final schooling in addition to his practical lessoning in the mines came through a correspondence course after he had become a man. His oldest memory picture of Murphysboro paints the town as a straggling village around about a court house, with a tail-like wing of homes and business places extending down McGuire hill away towards Mt. Carbon, when Mt. Carbon was the larger town and the fount of the local industrial pay rolls. Of the early trading places Mr. Blair recalls best, he says, the original "Company Store" when Capt. CHAPMAN was in charge. Here the miners' wives would go to shop on pay days, the first of the month. The old company book system was used. The customer would present her book. It would go in its turn into the top of the box in back of the counters, and come out of the bottom of the box. When it came out the owner would be waited on, not before. Mr. Blair says he remembers too well how traders would get into the crowded store at 8 and 10 a.m. on these days and sometimes be kept waiting until 4 and 5 pm. before their orders were filled. Coal mining, this pioneer miner declares was the "foundation of Murphysboro." To other industries he attributes the rounding out and modernization of the city that grew and grew. Leaving the mines when 20 years old, Mr. Blair made a trip through the northwest and did granitoid work in St. Louis three years, then to come back and take charge of the D. P. WILLIS & Co. coal operations at Willisville, which instanced the building of the town about the mine. Mr. Blair opened a store for the incoming populace. Both the mine and store prospered. The young mining man married Miss Evangeline ROSENDOIL, daughter of a landowner whose holdings the company developed. Six years later found him back in Murphysboro, where he opened in his own name Blair mine No. 1 on the M & O north of Gartside No. 4 and Blair No. 2, near the old Billy BOUCHER farm house, now the Earl IMHOFF farm, on the Missouri Pacific. Operation of mines 1 and 2 occupied him from 1902 to 1917. Mr. Blair's first public office was that of alderman in 1907. He was appointed postmaster under the Woodrow Wilson administration and served seven years. For a few years he found himself without a coal mine and then got back into the game. Mr. Blair was elected mayor last April. Additional Comments: Transcribed by Mary Riseling from grandfather C. E. RISELING's collection of old newspapers. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/jackson/newspapers/gusblair95nnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 5.6 Kb