Glenmary Coal & Coke Co.

PostedApril 25, 2026

UpdatedApril 25, 2026

Bybenwgarrett@gmail.com

One of the old beehive coke ovens that still remains at Coal Hill.

Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. was a coal mining and coke production enterprise that operated in the community of Glenmary, in southern Scott County, Tenn., from 1884 to approximately 1904. At its height, it was the dominant industrial concern in Scott County, transforming Glenmary into the largest community in the county and one of the most active industrial towns on the Cumberland Plateau.

Background and Origins

Glenmary is an unincorporated community in southern Scott County, situated along Davis Creek near where it empties into Black Wolf Creek. The hills to the east of the U.S. Highway 27 corridor were once rich with seams of coal, which led to the area becoming known as “Coal Hill.”

The first coal mine at Coal Hill opened in 1878, founded by Jabe Crooke of Ohio and an immigrant from Great Britain named John Heaps. When the Cincinnati & Southern Railroad was completed in 1880, a side track was built to the tipple at Glenmary. Here, Crooke had found a promising vein of coal averaging two to four feet in thickness some two miles east of the depot, on land owned by Andy Young. Buying up the mountain spur and surrounding land from Young for $500, Crooke began development of what would become the Coal Hill community by organizing the Crooke Coal Company on June 26, 1880.

Four years later, in 1884, Crooke sold his business interests in the mine to a group of businessmen from Lexington, Ky., and the Glenmary Coal & Coke Company was born.The formal organization of the Glenmary Coal & Coke Company took place on March 21, 1884.

Operations

Coal Mining

In 1887, the first year for which records are available, 86,584 tons of coal were shipped from Coal Hill; two years later that figure had reached 96,000 tons. By that date, the Glenmary Coal & Coke Company accounted for most of the coal dug in Scott County, totaling 108,000 tons. While the number varied from year to year, the Glenmary mines usually employed between 100 and 250 men.

Coke Production

The Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. began coke production in 1885 and continued until 1904. Coke — a carbon-rich fuel produced by heating coal under controlled, low-oxygen conditions — was a critical industrial material used in iron smelting and steel production throughout the late nineteenth century. In the coking process, coal was shoveled into insulated beehive-shaped ovens and ignited. After laborers sealed the doors with bricks and mud, the coal was left burning under low-oxygen conditions for several days, reaching scorching temperatures. The volatile parts of the coal ignited and escaped as gases through an exhaust hole in the roof, leaving behind coke — nearly pure carbon. The remains of the company’s beehive coke ovens are still visible at Glenmary today and represent some of the few surviving industrial artifacts from the operation.

Workforce and Community

Immigrant and Black Labor

Since there was no pool of miners to be had locally, the company initially brought in skilled immigrants who had worked the collieries of Wales and England. Later, black workers also formed a significant part of the workforce. Up until around 1900, about half of the Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. workforce was black. These men, along with their families, represented a considerable proportion of the Coal Hill–Glenmary population. The exact numbers are unknown today, but some figures place the community as high as one thousand people. The principal black neighborhood was known simply as “The Hundreds.”

Glenmary was a busy, booming company town, housing families not only of miners but also of coke oven and lumber/sawmill enterprises. Many of the European immigrant workers settled permanently; their headstones can be found at the Coal Hill Cemetery.

Wages and Working Conditions

The company maintained records of daily wage rates, with skilled positions such as dinkey engineer listed at $2.71 per day in the 1890s. Workplace accidents were not uncommon; company records document fatalities such as the death of Marlin Tomlinson, who was burned in a powder explosion in October 1895.

Racial Tensions and Exodus

For the most part, black and white workers worked well together at Coal Hill, at least in the early days. But while there was a limited amount of mixing of the races in certain social situations, most of the time both sides adhered to the unwritten rule of segregation. This uneasy coexistence collapsed in the early twentieth century. In March 1905, a popular store clerk at Robbins was shot and killed by a black man. The resulting outrage in the white community culminated in the black population of Scott County being given notice to leave under threat of violence. This overnight exodus is dramatically reflected in census returns for 1900 and 1910, which show the county’s black population dropped from 327 to 16.

Labor Unrest

The earliest known strike at Coal Hill occurred in 1888. Another walkout, called on account of a reduction in wages, lasted from April 1, 1891, until January 8, 1892. In 1891, a contract was entered into to do away with periods of shutdown at work. There was a Knights of Labor lot in the Halfway area for men to camp out on when workers were put out of company housing.

Glenmary as a Company Town

In the process, Glenmary became the largest community in Scott County, though its success was short-lived. By the turn of the century, Glenmary was the largest community in Scott County and one of the busiest. A 1955 interview with former resident Emma Lewallen described Coal Hill in its heyday: “When I went to Coal Hill as a bride in 1907 it was a thriving little mining town of about 2,500 or 3,000 people, between 800 and 1,000 of whom were colored folks.”

The year 1880 was the year Glenmary got its name, from a railway official who had two daughters whose names — “Glen” and “Mary” — he combined to create “Glenmary.” That same year a post office was established under the same name, replacing earlier designations of Redman and Black Wolf Creek.

Associated with the coal and coke enterprise was a parallel lumber industry. The first lumber mill at Glenmary was the Tennessee Coal & Lumber Company, used to process poplar, pine, and hemlock. In 1906, the lumber mill was transformed into a hardwood flooring mill.

Decline and Legacy

The Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. began production in 1885 and continued until 1904. The company’s closure marked a turning point from which the community never fully recovered. The railroad that had enabled the boom continued to serve the region, and a proposed new rail line connecting Glenmary to Jamestown was planned but never built; the route would have roughly followed what is now Nydeck Road. The lumber company eventually relocated near Oneida, where the Oneida & Western Railroad was later constructed.

The story of the Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. spanned some thirty years. It was but one of many similar operations that sprang up across the plateau in the early days of coal mining — crude beginnings to what became a substantial regional industry. These companies had a direct impact in shaping the character of local history, from the livelihoods they represented to the sense of community they produced.

In addition to the powder house (dynamite magazine), remains of the beehive coke ovens and a very small number of vintage buildings — including homes and churches — still remain at Glenmary, serving as tangible reminders of the community’s industrial past.