National Coal Mining Museum (Lizzie Joynton)

I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and my parents always wanted me to know local history. The ideas of family, tradition, and heritage were always in the background in our house, despite the fact that in our daily lives, none of the three was very apparent. However,

this interest in heritage and history meant that my brother and I took semi-regular trips to local history museums, whether with our family or with our schools. As a result, I learned a lot about mining. Colorado was originally settled mostly for the gold mines that are located there; in 1859 a gold vein was discovered, which caused a small gold rush just ten years after the ‘49ers had rushed to California. Colorado Springs was founded in 1871 mostly as a gold mining town, but by 1997, the year of my birth, most Colorado mines—for gold, coal, and other materials—were closed to the public.

You can imagine my excitement, then, when I got to visit a mine as part of our tour of the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield. I had been learning off and on about mining ever since I was a child, but this was my first experience actually touring a mine. It was everything I hoped for.

The mine, unfortunately, doesn’t allow any batteries underground (including the battery for my grandmother’s wristwatch!), so I couldn’t take any pictures. But if you’ve ever been inside a

A mine shaft used mostly for ventilation which spans the whole depth of the mine, looking down from the top. (Source: https://www.ncm.org.uk)

cave, you’ll remember the lovely coolness pressing down on you from all sides, and the feeling of security at the raw stone under your feet, with the vulnerability from above. A mine feels much like a cave, but is deeper and more artificial (who are we to take on the Earth?). The mine at the museum is 459 feet deep (the farthest distance, according to wisdom at the time of construction, that a man could fall and not die), and we went all the way to the bottom.

England today has no working coal mines. Our guide explained that most of the mines closed in the 1980s. The very last coal mine in the country closed in 2016. The history of coal mining goes back to the early 1800s. In the first days of mining, shafts were only 1x1 meter, or about 3x3 feet. They were big enough to drag coal through by a worker crawling on elbows and knees, but not any bigger than that. The conditions for the workers were terrible, yet for many, mining offered the best chance at survival. Making barely enough money to buy food, whole families were trapped into working their whole lives within the darkness of the mines. Only after the Mines and Collieries Bill of 1842 were women and children substantially prohibited from the hard labor of the mines. Conditions slowly improved, but were still far from ideal.

It's one thing to learn in school about how miners used to mine for gold in them hills yonder—it's quite another thing to actually go into them hills. I have noticed, as I travel from America to France to China to England, that not only do I learn in these experiences how to adapt; I learn how to value my roots even more. Being able to go into a mine was a nifty way to remember my own past and a good opportunity to reflect on how hard my ancestors have worked just to survive. It is a poignant reminder of how very blessed (even spoiled) we are today.

Image sources:

Image 1 and 2: http://www.miningartifacts.org/Colorado-Mines.html

Image 3: https://www.ncm.org.uk/learning/the-underground-experience