1950, when it became the Wray’s Hill Coal Company. Wray’s
Hill operated the coal tipple until 1966, when it reverted to the
Miller family. During its lifetime, the mine produced over 1.2
million tons of coal.
The East Broad Top began serving the mine in 1916, taking over
for the short-lived Juanita and Southern Railroad, a standard
gauge line. It was built as an extension from a logging line to
serve the mine at Jacobs after a dispute with the EBT developed
over the transfer fees at Mt. Union. However, the production of
the Jacobs mine was not sufficient to provide enough revenue
for the short 15-mile railroad, and the railroad was abandoned
in 1917 and sold for scrap. Because of the need for steel during
World War I, the scrap sale brought in more money than it had
cost to build the railroad.
There were several mines on the East Broad Top that weren’t
owned by the Rockhill Iron and Coal Company, EBT’s parent
company, but none of them were as large as the Jollar tipple.
Because of this, the Miller mine and the Vernon Coal Company,
a small wagon mine located near Rocky Ridge, continued to
operate during the miners’ strike and depression following
World War I. The Miller mine was non-union. This led to some
car availability problems. EBT hoppers were diverted to their
own mines, leaving Miller to get standard gauge Pennsylvania
hopper cars with narrow gauge trucks sent for loading to the
tipple at Jollar. Although the EBT could handle standard gauge
cars easily, these cars were probably only the 50-ton GLc hop-
per cars due to the rail loading. For my railroad, I have converted
two Bowser cars to narrow gauge to run to the tipples.
As early as 1928, the tipple at Jollar began shipping a por-
tion of their coal by trucks. This greatly concerned the EBT,
and they began to work out an agreement with the truckers to
