Laura Wright 
Coal mining developed a language all its own.
For generations of Appalachian miners, words such as firedamp, tipple, shot, and company store needed no explanation. They were part of everyday life in the coalfields. Some described the work itself, while others referred to dangers underground, equipment, mining communities, and the peculiar economic system that developed around the mines.
Many of these terms have faded as the old mining communities disappeared.
Here are some of the words once commonly heard throughout the Appalachian coalfields.
Afterdamp
Afterdamp refers to the dangerous mixture of gases left behind following a mine fire or explosion.
These gases could include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other toxic or suffocating substances. An explosion might therefore be only the first danger. Miners who survived the initial blast could subsequently be overcome by the contaminated air.
Blackdamp
Blackdamp is a suffocating mixture of gases found in poorly ventilated areas of a mine.
It contains too little oxygen to sustain life and can accumulate in abandoned workings, low areas and other poorly ventilated portions of a mine.
Unlike some mining hazards, blackdamp does not have to explode to kill.
A miner entering an affected area could simply lose consciousness.
Firedamp
Firedamp refers primarily to methane encountered underground.
Methane can accumulate in pockets within coal mines and becomes highly explosive when mixed with air. A flame, spark or blasting operation could ignite it, sometimes producing catastrophic explosions.
The danger of firedamp was one reason the development of safer mine lamps became so important.
Coal Dust
Mining produces enormous quantities of fine coal dust.
Apart from the damage caused by breathing it over long periods, suspended coal dust could become explosive. A relatively small ignition underground could disturb accumulated dust, allowing the explosion to spread violently through mine workings.
Coal dust therefore represented both a long-term health hazard and an immediate danger.
Shot or Fireshot
A shot was an explosive charge used to break coal from the seam.
After the coal face had been cut or undercut, miners drilled holes into it. Explosive material could then be packed into these openings and detonated, breaking loose coal that could be loaded and transported from the mine.
A miner responsible for blasting might be known as a shot firer or shotfireman.
Undercut
To undercut coal was to cut into the lower portion of a coal seam before blasting or breaking it loose.
Creating this opening gave the coal somewhere to move when the shot was fired and made extraction easier.
Before mechanization, this could involve exhausting physical labor performed while lying or crouching in extremely confined spaces.
Coke
Coke is produced by heating coal under conditions that drive away much of its volatile material.
The resulting carbon-rich fuel was particularly important to the iron and steel industries.
Coal-producing regions sometimes contained large complexes of coke ovens, where coal was converted before being shipped to industrial customers.
Tipple
The tipple was one of the most recognizable structures in many mining communities.
Coal brought from the mine was taken to the tipple, where it could be sorted, processed and loaded for transportation.
In many coal camps, the tipple dominated the landscape almost as completely as a church steeple dominated an older farming community.
Coal Dock
Smaller mining operations sometimes transported coal by truck to a coal dock, where it could be transferred into railroad cars for shipment.
Railroads were essential to the development of many Appalachian coalfields. Entire communities grew along rail lines constructed to carry coal out of previously isolated mountain regions.
Portal or Mine Mouth
The portal, commonly called the mine mouth, is the entrance to an underground mine.
For miners, it represented the boundary between two very different worlds.
Outside was daylight.
Beyond the portal were the workings.
Entry
An entry is a passage driven into a coal seam that provides access to the mine workings.
Mines could contain extensive networks of entries, crosscuts and rooms extending considerable distances underground.
Face or Coal Face
The face is the working surface from which coal is currently being extracted.
A miner working “at the face” was therefore working where the actual cutting, drilling or loading of coal was taking place.
Gob
Gob generally refers to waste material or the collapsed area left behind after coal has been removed.
The exact use of the word varied somewhat among mining regions and mining methods.
It is one of those wonderfully peculiar mining words that could sound completely incomprehensible outside the coalfields while being perfectly ordinary underground.
Roof
The roof is exactly what it sounds like: the rock forming the ceiling of an underground mine opening.
Unfortunately, it could also be one of the miner’s greatest dangers.
Falls of rock and slate from the roof killed and injured countless miners. Timber supports, roof bolts and other methods were developed to control unstable mine roofs.
Roof Fall
A roof fall occurs when rock from above collapses into the mine workings.
Even relatively small falls could be deadly.
The danger was so familiar that experienced miners learned to watch and listen for signs that the roof was becoming unstable.
Timber
Timbers were wooden supports placed underground to help support the mine roof.
Before modern roof-bolting systems became widespread, timbering was an essential part of underground safety.
The forest above the coalfield consequently supplied more than scenery. Enormous quantities of Appalachian timber went underground to hold the mountains up while miners worked beneath them.
Mantrip
A mantrip transported miners into and out of underground workings.
As mines extended farther beneath the mountains, simply walking from the portal to the working face could consume considerable time. Transportation systems became necessary to carry crews underground.
Coal Car
Coal cars were small rail cars used to transport coal through underground workings and eventually toward the surface.
Earlier cars might be moved by hand, mule or other animal power. Later mines increasingly relied upon mechanical haulage.
Motorman
A motorman operated the locomotive or motor used to haul coal cars, equipment or personnel through the mine.
It was one of many specialized jobs that developed as underground mining became increasingly mechanized.
Breaker Boy
A breaker boy was a young worker employed to separate slate, rock and other impurities from coal.
The work became infamous during the era of widespread child labor in American coal mining. Boys could spend long hours hunched over moving coal, surrounded by dust and machinery.
Breaker boys were particularly associated with the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania, although child labor occurred elsewhere in the American coal industry as well.
Trapper Boy
A trapper boy was usually a young worker assigned to operate ventilation doors inside a mine.
The job could mean sitting alone underground for long periods, opening and closing a door whenever miners, animals or coal cars needed to pass.
It was simple work.
It was also dark, lonely and dangerous.
Company Store
The company store was a general store owned or controlled by the mining company.
In isolated coal camps, it might supply nearly everything a mining family needed: food, clothing, tools, household goods and other necessities.
The company store became one of the enduring symbols of Appalachian coal culture because miners could become economically dependent upon the same company that employed them.
Scrip
Scrip was company-issued currency or credit that could be used for purchases, particularly at company-owned stores.
Different companies issued their own forms of scrip, including tokens, coins and paper certificates.
The system became so closely associated with coal mining that it survived in American popular culture through the familiar expression of owing one’s “soul to the company store.”
Coal Camp
A coal camp was a community established around a mining operation.
The company might own the miners’ houses, store and other buildings. Some camps eventually developed into permanent towns. Others disappeared almost completely after the coal operation closed.
Across Appalachia, traces of these communities can still be found in old roads, foundations, cemeteries and rows of surviving company houses.
Lantern and Mine Lamp
Before widespread electric lighting, miners depended upon lamps and lanterns underground.
Open flames presented an obvious danger in mines where methane could accumulate. Various safety lamps were therefore developed to provide illumination while reducing the possibility of igniting explosive gases.
Later, electric cap lamps provided miners with safer and considerably more convenient illumination.
Canary in the Coal Mine
The famous canary in the coal mine was more than an expression.
Small animals, particularly canaries, could provide warning of dangerous gases because they might succumb to contaminated air before human miners recognized the danger.
The phrase eventually escaped the mine entirely.
Today, a “canary in the coal mine” means an early warning that something is going wrong.
The Language of the Coalfields
Coal mining terminology tells us something about the world that produced it.
There were words for the coal, words for the machinery and words for the men who performed particular jobs. But there were also an extraordinary number of words for danger.
Firedamp.
Blackdamp.
Afterdamp.
Roof fall.
Coal dust.
The vocabulary reflects the reality of working underground, where knowledge of what surrounded you could mean the difference between finishing a shift and never coming home.
Much of the old coal industry has disappeared from Appalachia, and many former mining communities have dwindled along with it. But the language survives in family stories, historical records and communities built around the mines.
For people who grew up in the coalfields, some of these strange old words aren’t really strange at all.
They are simply part of home.
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