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When an error was made in the amount of cash needed to meet payroll at the Cherokee & Pittsburg mines at Frontenac in 1890 it caused a little excitement.
“Yesterday was pay day at the Santa Fe coal Company mines, and when the cashier at Frontenac discovered that there was only $4,000 to balance a $12,000 pay roll consternation followed. A notice was posted that a large part of the miners would be put off until Monday. This was read and received with an uproar amounting almost to a riot, until it was explained that a mistake had been made and that everything would be rectified Monday. … Mine No. 2 is closed, all working in No. 1 are on about half time. This makes any little irregularity such as yesterday very had to be borne. It is not easy to keep sweet tempered and considerate with scarcely work enough to keep the wolf from the door.”
Source: The Pittsburg Smelter, Saturday, 22 March 1890, Vol. XI, No. 12.
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.
