United Electric No 9. Cuba mine

East and south east of the small town of Cuba, Illinois in central Fulton County today is now a bunch of farms and old strip mine lates but over forty years ago it was a good sized coal mine that had access to two railroad companies serving them one from the south the other from the north. By the few pictures I have seen of it the mine covered quite a few miles and multiple sections of Putman township.  It wasn't just another small coal mine that came and went but was one of the biggest if not the biggest in Fulton County.  The mine itself in this area operated for many decades from 1923 until 1971.  











When the No. 9 mine opened in 1923, a Curtis Owens was the first man employed to start construction on the railroad into the mine or so I read.  He and five other men using horses and scrappers cleared timber to lay this track which would head from the CB&Q line branched up north on what would be  later Route 97 between Lewistown and Cuba.  Over the years walking  drag lines, shovels and crawlers were manufactured by Bucyrus-Erie and Marion.  The Kolbe wheel was introduced to this mine in 1944,

By what I have seen online it seems both  CB&Q  Railroad and TP&W  served this mine but i'm not sure at different times.  The spur to the TP&W  seems to have been built as early as maybe the 1950's while the CB&Q was around since the mine was constructed yet was still on the maps as late as 1962 and 1966.  The  coal mine closed down in 1971.  This is all I really know about it but I have seen the TP&W spur track right of way off of Cuba Black top.  I also know where to look for the other right of way when I think about it the next time I travel route 97.  I took a picture of what i thought was an old signal box for a crossing at Route 97 and even a friend thought that but I need to go find it in my albums over the years.  I know it's still there because it was the last time i  traveled from Lewistown to Cuba  within the past few weeks.  I can  go back and add to this blog later any future pictures I take.  As of right now this is all i know about the mine.

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