Engineering Building

Engineering Building. Headquarters for Coal Mine Planning, Payroll and Railroad Operations Management. , Underground coal mining is dangerous and labor-intensive. Mine tunnels required careful engineering, and the Davis Coal and Coke Company built this Engineering Building to enable planning for efficient operations and good record-keeping. A chemical laboratory located next door (center, below) performed testing of coal samples., The mine payroll staff operated from the first floor of the Engineering Building. Employees received their pay at a window inside. Railroad clerks tracked company store inventory, equipment, and items arriving and departing by rail., [Captions:] , After the mines closed, the Western Maryland Railway and its successor company, Chessie System Railroads, used this building to manage local railroad operations and business transactions until the mid-1980s. Paul Dumire of Thomas was its last employee; he is shown here at his desk on the second story., The background images here show documents found in the Engineering Office. Each was a page in a ledger. Clockwise from upper left, they include a record of employees' company store payments, a wages and deductions transaction sheet, and a log of coal sample tests., The portraits below right show Davis Coal and Coke Company office employees., The view at right shows the Engineering Office under construction. In the main image above, women and children, likely mine and railroad employees' families or school groups, line up at the Buxton and Landstreet store with the Engineering Office and laboratory behind them.