Kansas Coal Country: County Histories of Kansas's Coal Mines

A weathered wooden mine headframe and an inclined coal chute beside a dirt road, with large mine waste dumps on the right. — A coal mine with strip mining dumps behind it in Cherokee County, Kansas, photographed by Arthur Rothstein in May 1936 (Farm Security Administration collection).Arthur Rothstein. Library of Congress. Source record. Public domain.

These 3 pages tell the story of Kansas coal mining county by county, written only from the old county histories, with every source cited.

The counties

Cherokee County, Kansas Coal, Lead and Zinc Mines, 1877 to 1904How the 1904 Cherokee County, Kansas history tells it: the Scammon coal shaft, Weir City and Mineral City camps, and the 1877 lead strike at Galena.From the 1904 county history

Coal Mining in Crawford County, Kansas: Pittsburg, Frontenac, MidwayHow coal built Pittsburg, Kansas: the 1877 Coyle shaft, Carbon creek strip pits, company camps like Frontenac and Chicopee, and the miners who worked them.From the 1905 county history

Coal Mining in Leavenworth County, Kansas: Leavenworth and LansingHow Leavenworth, Kansas found coal 713 feet down in 1870, plus the Lansing penitentiary mine and the Riverside, Home and Carr mines, per the 1906 history.From the 1906 county history

Coal country in the other Midwest states →

Tracing a coal-mining ancestor in Kansas

Federal census. From 1850 on, the census lists each man's occupation. Look for "coal miner" or "miner," the township, and his birthplace and his parents' birthplaces, which often point to another coal region or another country.
Death records and cemeteries. Search our Kansas database by surname. Many coal camps had their own cemeteries, which outlived the towns.
Mine inspectors' reports. State mine inspectors published regular reports on the mines in their districts, including accidents.
The county histories. Each page here links the books it was written from. Their biographical sections name operators, superintendents, and miners, with parents, spouses, and where the family came from.
Newspapers. Local papers carried mine openings, strikes, accidents, and obituaries. Chronicling America, from the Library of Congress, is free to search.

Was your family in Kansas coal country?

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Frequently asked questions

Where were Kansas's coal mines?

The pages here cover Cherokee, Crawford and Leavenworth counties, as the old county histories describe them. Each page names the mines, companies and camps its books record.

How do I find out if my ancestor was a coal miner in Kansas?

Start with the census: from 1850 on it lists occupation, so look for 'coal miner' or 'miner' and note the township. Then read the county history for that county and look for the state mine inspectors' reports.

Are these pages based on real sources?

Yes. Each county page is written only from public-domain county histories, names the books, and links to the full text on the Internet Archive.

Photographs on this page are in the public domain. About the images and their sources.