Brier Hill

Brier Hill is a coal mining district in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, whose mining buildings were largely built between 1902 and 1904. The district includes five double company houses, a group of sandstone mining buildings with slate roofs, and about 75 of an original 600 brick beehive coking ovens. The company houses have sandstone foundations, coal-burning heating stoves and separate yards, a layout unusual for company towns of the period. The mine was about 700 feet deep, reportedly the deepest bituminous coal mine in Pennsylvania, and it closed in 1936 after water flooded the workings faster than it could be pumped out. The coke it produced supplied blast furnaces of the Brier Hill Steel Company in Ohio. The district is regarded as a well-preserved example of a company-owned coal town and its mining complex.