Carolina Coal Demon

 Death in the Dark 

The Story of the Deep River Coal Demon

Deep under the North Carolina ground is a black vein of dirty decay. The Deep River coal field is an area of Triassic rocks stretching 36 miles along the river in Chatham, Lee, and Moore Counties. In the age of dinosaurs there was a vast swamp along an ancient river. As swamps tend to do, decaying plant matter formed layers of peat in the humid dense environment. Over huge amounts of time shifts in plates and other events changed the landscape and large amounts of sediment flowed down and gathered in the area. The pressure of the massive layers of sediment created the perfect situation to turn the peat into coal. For 200 years people have attempted to dig this coal out of the ground. Deep River is NC’s only commercial coal bed. 

The coal industry has always been extremely dangerous and historically, many tragedies have been associated with mines. Over time, the abundance of illness, death, and mishap creates a need for explanation in the human mind. As we often do, people created legends to place blame somewhere that would give them the opportunity to feel like they could continue working by creating superstitious ways to protect themselves. It was a way to rationalize a terrible industrial human rights travesty without placing blame on the industrialists.

 In NC's coal mines, the scapegoat came in the form of a demon. The Deep River coal field is cursed by this disturbed demon, and many have lost their lives in his clutches. 

The demon has guarded his coal through each attempt to plunder it. No one has been profitable off of the mine due to the disastrous explosions, cave ins, and flood outs. The Old Egypt mine and the Carolina mine should have been successful, they supplied coal to the railroad and the Confederate Army during the Civil War. But unfortunately the complex geology of the region made mining difficult. There was ground water and there were intrusions and veins of softer minerals that caused unexpected weakness in the tunnels. The coal itself seemed to be cursed and stories came back from the battlefields of the dreaded Deep River coal that burned yellow giving away their location to the Union soldiers. Sales to the military stopped and money owed was not paid due to the loss of life. The mines closed for almost two decades. 

A company with a new plan opened the mine to great success. The mine employed upwards of 80 miners who earned what was considered a good wage, drawing miners from the north.  A few specialized men worked as blasters, places and igniting the TNT to break loose the coal. Most of the men worked as loaders. They shoveled the freed coal into carts, which were then carried away by mule.

The first disaster struck on a winter morning. At 8:30 a.m. on  December 19, 1895 an explosion ripped through the Egypt Mine. Forty-six of the sixty-seven men in the mine at the time perished.  The cause was believed to be natural gas ignited by a flame in a miners helmet.  

The company struggled to keep going but in May of 1900 another gas explosion killed twenty-two miners. It really was too much for the already limping company.  In two years, the Egypt coal mine was closed again.

The Carolina Coal Company was formed in 1921 with the intention of developing a mine across the river from the Egypt Mine. In its first year of full-scale operation it more than doubled the best of the Old Egypt Mine's output. Again things were looking up for the Deep River Coal Bed.  But once again the profits failed to materialize.  

In the spring of 1925 at seven in the morning seventy-four miners went down into the dark of the Carolina Mine.  Fifty-three of those men did not leave the mine alive.

   

The Carolina Mine closed a few years later when the mine began to flood through an air shaft.  The water was pumped, but they made no precautions against future flooding.  So it happened again and after the mine flooded again in 1930 it was closed.

During the post WWII boom era the mines were reopened as tourist attractions but the stories of tragedy attracted night time trespassers and the mines went into disrepair with miss use and were later closed completely. The coal still sits under the earth. Tempting modern fortune seekers to risk it all and tempt their fate with the Carolina coal demon.