Most of what we see still standing today are enclosed bee-
hives. It isn’t known when or how the beehives came to be
enclosed to reduce heat loss to the ovens, however with the
amount of dirt-cheap labor, it isn’t hard to see how quickly this
could have been developed.
After the invention of the Bessemer process for making steel
as the number of beehives skyrocketed from 200 in 1870
to 31,000 by 1905 in just the Pittsburgh area. In 1885, the
Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron company had the
The Lite and Narrow Column - 4
A Brief History
By definition from Wikipedia, “Coke: the fuel is a solid carbona-
ceous material derived from the destructive distillation of low-
ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal.”
Wikipedia also gives a brief history of coke, stating: “The use of
coke, as a fuel, has been with us for centuries. It was first found
to be used in China as early as the 9th century for heating and
cooking. In the early decades of the 11th century, ironworkers
in the Yellow River region of China began using it to fuel their
furnaces as wood was almost nonexistent in the area.”
A patent was granted in England in 1589 for the making of iron
and steel, along with the smelting of lead. In the patent was a
distinct reference to the processing of coal by “cooking.” Two
more patents were issued which mentioned coke, in 1620 as
3
3: Coke Ovens Battery No. 4 of the Newcastle Coal
Co. in operation at Newcastle, AL Courtesy of
from Ted McCormack Collection
MRH-Dec 2013
