Though many underground coal mines in Washington were dry, sometimes miners encountered conditions requiring full-on rain gear. So it was in December 1959 for Bob Coutts and Max Manowski when working in the Rogers mine during its second year of operation.
The Rogers mine, named for Enoch Rogers the bulldozer operator who uncovered the outcropping, was unique in mining history as the coal seam was nearly vertical in places. During the Eocene period about 35-55 million years ago, coal was formed in flat sedimentary layers over ten of thousands of years. In Washington State uplift from the Cascade mountain range later twisted and turned those sedimentary layers into pitching and broken coal seams which made local mining difficult.
At the Rogers mine, the pitch sometimes approached 90º or nearly vertical. The mine was developed in 1958 with a portal on a hillside above the Summit-Landsburg Road that later became known as Rogers #1. A second portal adjacent to the Summit-Landsburg Road opened the following year and was called Rogers #2. The third and final opening, Rogers #3 was just north of Kent-Kangley Road in Ravensdale near 262nd Ave. S.E.
The combined mine operated on four different levels reaching depths of nearly 800 feet underground and in total produced over 493,000 tons of coal during 17 years of operation. When Palmer Coking Coal Co. closed their operation in 1975, Rogers #3 was the last underground coal mine in Washington.
Max Manowski was a lifelong coal miner who worked at a number of mines, including those operated by Northwest Improvement, T.A. Olson Fuel, Johnson Coal, Evan Jones Coal, and Healy River Coal in Alaska. But his primary employment was with Palmer Coking Coal, where he started in 1948 before retiring in 1973. Bob Coutts began in the coal industry on June 2, 1953, the day after his 18th birthday which coincided with graduation from Enumclaw high school. After timbering a year with Dave Stonebridge, a seasoned miner, Bob worked in the gangway and later operated the Joy loader. In early 1960, Coutts left underground coal mining and began working in the woods as a logger. Now retired, he still lives in Cumberland where he was born.
