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Wednesday, August 14, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Other mine museums also have been experiencing a rise in interest in the underground after the Quecreek accident and rescue.

The week of July 29, attendance was up 30 percent over the same time last year at the Seldom Seen Mine near Patton, Cambria County, says Gary Haluska, the Democratic state representative who helps run it. Among the continued curious is the grandson of U.S. Rep. Tom Murtha.

Opened in 1939 as Miller Run No. 8, the drift mine began yielding tourist dollars along with coal in 1963, its last year as a working mine. Closed in the 1980s and reopened in the mid-'90s as a nonprofit, the attraction is now open Thursdays through Sundays, May 1 through Labor Day. Tours begin at noon and the last one enters at 5 p.m. Hours and days haven't yet been set for this Halloween season's "Haunted Mine."

Admission is $6, or $3.50 for children 12 and younger. Groups of 20 or more save 50 cents per person. For more information, visit the Web site www.seldomseenmine.com or call 1-814-674-8939.

Another deep attraction is the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine in Beckley, W.Va., where director Renda Morris says visitors are asking her tour guides plenty of Quecreek questions. Veteran miners lead tours of 1,500 feet of passages. Above ground, visitors can go through a museum, houses that once were lived in by a mining family and a mine superintendent and other "coal camp" buildings.

The place is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (last tour at 5:30 p.m.) daily, April 1 through Nov. 1. Admission is $11, $10 for seniors and $8 for children ages 4 to 12 (discounts available for groups of 10 or more).

For more information, call 1-304-256-1747 (its new Web site is under construction).

Even out in Eastern Pennsylvania, Quecreek as been coming up down in the Lackawanna County Coal Mine in Scranton, says mine foreman Tom Supey Jr. You can "go down in history" and into anthracite, or hard coal, at this slope mine. The county-run mine is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily April through November. Information: www.visitnepa.org/coalmine/index.html or 1-800-238-7245.

The adjacent state Anthracite Heritage Museum (1-570-963-4804) is open year-round from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $4, $3.50 for seniors and $2 for youth 17 and younger.

There is another Pennsylvania Museum of Anthracite Mining at the Pioneer Tunnel at Ashland, Schuylkill County. This drift mine tour runs April through November ($7 for adults and $4.50 for children under 12; go to www.pioneertunnel.com or call 1-570-875-3850).