Consolidation Coal Company (Iowa)
The company operated in south central Iowa in Mahaska and Monroe counties until after World War I. Exhaustion of some resources, competition from overseas markets, and other changes led to the company's closing down its mines and leaving its major planned towns by the late 1920s.
The CCC worked at Muchakinock in Mahaska County until the coal resources of that area were largely exhausted.
After rapidly building the planned community of Buxton in northern Monroe County, CCC moved its headquarters there.
Buxton has been described as "an example of the superimposition of the urban-industrial pattern on the rural countryside and the subsequent shifts that occur as regional economic exploitive systems change.
"[1] CCC hired a high proportion of African-American workers, recruited from the South, and they occupied leadership positions in the local unions and company towns.
The coal markets had changed after World War I, and the workers dispersed to other locales and cities across the country.
Those working at Muchakinock and Buxton were given equal pay to white workers and lived in integrated communities.
By 1878, Consolidation Coal Company had 400 employees, and in 1880, it was purchased by the Chicago and North Western Railway to secure a regional source for its fuel.
J. E. Buxton, Consolidation's superintendent, sent Major Thomas Shumate south to hire African Americans as strike breakers.
Rail fare from Virginia to Iowa was $12, which the company paid and took as an advance against each miner's monthly wages.
[12] The company paid black and white workers equally, and did not permit segregation in housing or schools in its camps and towns.
80% of this paid for health insurance, while the remainder went into a sinking fund to cover members' burial expenses.
6 and 7, located about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Oskaloosa, produced 1550 tons of coal per day, employing 489 men and boys.
Tensions were high enough that the company management armed Muchakinock's black miners with Springfield rifles.
By May 28, tension was so high among workers that Companies G and K of the Second Regiment of the Iowa National Guard were sent to Muchakinock to preserve order.
On May 30, large bodies of armed strikers, from 400 to 600 men, were congregating in Mahaska County, apparently intent on forcing the nearby mining camp of Evans to strike as the first stage of an attack on Muchakinock.
Brown, the first African American to receive a bachelor's degree from the State University of Iowa, was principal of the Muchakinock public school.
The Consolidation Coal Company opened a new mining camp in Buxton, Monroe County.
The founding of Buxton in 1901 led to a "great exodus" of workers and their families, leaving Muchakinock nearly vacant by 1904.
In 1900 and 1901, after extending the Muchakinock branch of the Chicago and North Western tracks across the Des Moines River, the Consolidation Coal Company opened a new mining camp at Buxton, in Monroe County[25] 41°9′30″N 92°49′15.63″W / 41.15833°N 92.8210083°W / 41.15833; -92.8210083.
It hired architect Frank E. Wetherell to design miners' houses, two churches, and a high school as part of its "urban planning and social humanitarianism.
After a strike by white miners, the company recruited additional black workers from mining areas in the South.
The town's population was multi-ethnic, with white immigrants from Slovakia, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Wales and England.
10 was about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Buxton, with a 119-foot-deep (36 m) shaft and a 69-foot (21 m) headframe, working a coal seam that varied from 4 to 7 feet (2.1 m) thick.
[31] African Americans continued operating the benevolent society they had established at Muchakinock, renaming it as the Buxton Mining Colony.
The US postmaster, superintendent of schools, most of the teachers, two justices of the peace, two constables, and two deputy sheriffs were all African American.
[34] African-American physicians included Edward A. Carter, MD, who was born in Muchakinock and was the first "colored" graduate of the University of Iowa College of Medicine.
[35][36] George H. Woodson and Samuel Joe Brown were African-American attorneys who lived in Buxton for a time; they were among the co-founders in 1905 of the Niagara Movement, a predecessor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
He recommended a study of Buxton to a textile manufacturer interested in raising capital for a cotton mill employing black labor.
The town site was the subject of an archaeological survey in the 1980s, which investigated the economic and social aspects of material culture of African Americans in Iowa.
