Coal cost was fuel bane of the past

Talk of a coal strike sent shivers up the spines of Mainers a century ago just as talk of an oil price increase by the OPEC cartel does today. Coal was the king of fuels. It was the backbone of economic prosperity, energizing most factories and railroads. In cities such as Bangor, it was the home heating fuel of choice.

A United Mine Workers Strike in 1902 had sent prices spiraling and cut off the supply of coal completely to some areas. “One shudders when he contemplates the utter paralysis of New England a few years ago,” commented a Bangor Daily News editorial, recalling the strike that finally was settled by the intercession of President Theodore Roosevelt.

There were rumblings of coal strikes during the winter of 1906, but they seemed to have a minimal impact in Bangor. There was still a lot of coal on hand. The city’s eight dealers, however, raised the price of a ton by 75 cents late in March in order to discourage hoarding and to head off a coal “famine.” (For example, that amounted to an increase of from $7.50 to $8.25 for stove coal.) The higher prices and the mildness of the waning winter had the desired effect.

“The strike can go on for several months without hurting Bangor a great deal but should it continue into the fall to so late a time that it would be impossible to send [coal] vessels here to discharge, the city would feel it,” reported the Bangor Daily Commercial on April 16. In other words, Bangor wasn’t too worried as long as it got enough coal for next winter before the Penobscot River froze.

Coal consumption in the United States doubled every decade between 1850 and 1890, according to Barbara Freese in her book “Coal: A Human History.” By 1900 it provided 71 percent of the nation’s energy. Oil, natural gas and hydropower each provided less than 3 percent, and wood had dropped to 21 percent.

“The days of the wood fire have passed,” declared a Bangor Daily News editorial on Feb. 26, 1906. “No matter how one may view the situation coal is preferable to wood. One dollar invested in coal will generate more heat and give more comfort than $2 invested in wood.” Of course, many country people still burned wood.

Bangor Harbor had grown by leaps and bounds as a coal port. Coal “receipts” had increased dramatically in 30 years, from 27,497 tons in 1876 to 361,086 tons, the BDN reported on the day after Christmas 1905. The paper even listed the names of the 247 vessels that had delivered coal to the Queen City.

Not all of the coal stayed in Bangor. Some of it went north to fuel the rapidly burgeoning paper companies and other industries that were developing in remote areas. Local businessmen worried the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad’s new docks at Stockton Springs and Searsport would enable the B&A’s latest spur, the Northern Seaport Railroad, to bypass the Queen City with loads of coal. Would Bangor’s economic supremacy be damaged?

The specter of striking coal miners remained an even bigger worry. Indeed, Maine’s Socialist Party recently had approved a line in its platform saying, “We demand the immediate national ownership of coal mines.” Back then such developments seemed possible in the United States of America.

Some people believed Maine could have its own coal mine. The geography around the town of Perry seemed a likely spot. Unfortunately, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey ended the coal mine speculation: “ANOTHER DREAM SHATTERED: Geologists Report There is No Coal at Perry” declared the BDN on Feb. 5, 1905.

After World War II, King Coal was deposed by oil. There was lots of it. It was easier to handle than coal and caused less pollution. And, best of all, it became cheaper than coal. Continued strikes by the United Mine Workers also contributed to the decline in coal use.

Today, coal makes up only about a quarter of the nation’s energy mix, most of it used to generate electricity, according to energy expert Dick Hill, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the University of Maine. Petroleum products, such as gasoline and heating oil, account for 42 percent and natural gas for 26 percent.

When the coal-strike scare ended abruptly in early May a century ago, The Bangor Daily Commercial printed an emotional editorial expressing the fear Mainers had felt: “The most cheering news that the Commercial bears to its thousands of readers today is the announcement that there will be no strike of the anthracite coal miners. Coming as it does on the eve of the Sabbath there can be but special cause for praise in the Sunday service tomorrow that the price of coal will not be carried beyond the purse of the average working man of this section; that its increased cost will not inflict undo hardship upon every man, woman and child in this New England latitude, so dependent upon coal for manufacturing and domestic use.”

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.