Whitebreast Fuel Company, Hilton, Iowa

Hilton Basin.-The Whitebreast Fuel Company is operating but one mine in the county at present. The mine being located at Hilton. The hoisting shaft is located near the center of section 10, Monroe township. The mine was opened in the late 1900 and has already become one of the large producers of the slate. The seam is four feet thick and furnishes a good grade of steam coal. The equipment and management of the mine both surface and underground are excellent. The buildings on the surface are very substantial, steel alone being used in the framing and corrugated iron for the sheathing. The steel tipple forty by sixty feet is well planned for the work that it must do. One thousand two hundred tons of coal can be handled daily. The boiler house is forty-two by forty-five feet and contains at present two tubular Ottumwa boilers which furnish steam at eighty pounds pressure to the hoisting engine, the fan engine and the loader. The fuel used is what passes through the screen from the chute that supplies the country trade. A larry brings the coal into the boiler room on an elevated track from which it can be dumped at either boiler. Sufficient space has been reserved for a third boiler similar to the two in place in case an increasing output demands greater boiler capacity.

Geology of Monroe County 1902