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In an effort to obtain adequate miners, railroads in 1887 began to transport miners from Pittsburg to their local mines. Pittsburg endorsed this arrangement as it helped to keep miners living in the city.
“The Santa Fe company has made the employees of their mines at Frontenac and Vermillion [now Chicopee] a round trip rate of 5 cents to and from Pittsburg. The miners in the employ of the Missouri Pacific company at Fleming, who reside in Pittsburg, are given the same rate. There is an exceedingly liberal rate, and the benefits to be derived from it by Pittsburg are incalculable. Pittsburg will boom and boom until she heads the list as the great city of southeastern Kansas.”
Source: The Daily Headlight, Saturday, 3 December 1887, Vol. 1, No. 197.
Born in 1944 at the old Mt. Carmel Hospital, Pittsburg, Jerry D. Lomshek has been a lifelong resident of Crawford County and the Chicopee area. The grandson of a Slovene immigrant coal miner, he became interested in history at a young age, and began researching family and local history at the age of 14. This being a lifelong passion, he has amassed a mammoth amount of local historical data over the years. He has lectured and written several manucripts concerning the history of Southeast Kansas. From his service in the Navy, and as a registered nurse, he spent 45 years involved in various aspects of health care. Since retiring, he has devoted his time to further local historical research and various community involvement.
