Located at Glen Carbon on
the north side of the Heckschersville Valley. The original opening was a water
level tunnel driven north 225 ft. through dirt and rock to a leader of coal
from which tunnels were driven north and south to the skidmore and mammoth veins
by Stanton and Beal in 1845 and they mined them until 1852.
In 1852, Mcfarland and Vierner
succeeded them and sunk the slope 300 ft. on the south dip of the "crosly"
top split of the mammoth vein in 1855. They mined the slope gangways to 1866
when a squeeze occured closing the slope and suspending the colliery.
In 1866, John Lucas &
Company leased the colliery and sunk a new slope west of the old slope and later
extended it 900 ft. to the lower level. They reopened the old slope as a pump
slope and drove a tunnel across the basin, operating the colliery until 1873
when the pump slope was destroyed by fire.
In 1873, the Oakdale Coal
and Mining Co. succeeded Lucas & Co. and operated to 1874 when they were
succeeded by Richardson & Co. who operated until 1875.
In 1875, the Philadelphia
& Reading Coal & Iron Co. purchased the colliery and drove tunnels across
the basin.
In 1892, they sunk the middle
split tender slope to the same elevation as the hoisting slope. The P&R
C&I Co. continued mining on an extensive scale until 1902, when a strike
of the miners occurred and the colliery was abandoned.
In 1913, the company drove a water level tunnel north in the broad mountain to the jugular basin and operated it for several years preparing the coal at the Pine Knot Breaker. The total shipment of coal from Richardson Colliery was 2,295,028 tons and total capital invested in 1852 was $54,000.