Marianna was a new town when this image was done about 1908. Judith Florian wrote a concise history of the town, she had this to say of the miners patch :
The houses were 4, 5 or 6 rooms; the largest were permanent for mine bosses, or owners who might need temporary lodging. The smaller homes were for miners, as well as a 14-room boarding house erected on the hillside behind the mine shafts. The homes were made of yellow-color bricks, fired at Johnetta Plant of the United States Sewer Pipe Company (also owned by the Jones' brothers), and shipped by rail to Marianna. Within a few months, this former farmland area became not just a town, but the "model mining town of the world." A 6-room house rented for $6.00 a month; this included free water supplied by a company-built water reservoir to process water from Ten Mile Creek, free electricity provided by the Power Plant, and garbage removal. Each residence had indoor hot water and bathrooms, town sewage treatment, natural gas, and "landscaping" of 1 tree in each front yard. A modern 3-story brick school-house and the Marianna Arcade building were built in 1910' the Arcade had a drug store, ice cream parlor, bowling alleys, billiard tables, dance floor/skating rink, reading/lecture room, and an indoor pool.
Many modern photos of the mine and patch can be found here in a super website done by Chris DellaMea. On the internet there is a lot of reading available on the mine, the explosion and the town in general.
A simple shelter for passengers at this end of the line town. Coal was the real moneymaker here.
Dedication of the Arcade, July4, 1910.
Mary Ann Feehan Jones for whom Marianna was named.
Marianna School class in 1922
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