The Old Coal Furnace

The Old Coal Furnace


The old coal furnace called for more fuel. I looked at it and knew. I knew that soon Dad would be looking at me with the nudging look. Go get some coal the look would say. Dad was a man of few words. I hated that big old furnace. It was about 8 feet long, 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It was a monstrosity. Always calling for coal then letting out that scream if it got too much. There were dials and gauges on the top of the thing. It was a steam boiler.

At regular intervals the pop off valve would activate and the steam would shoot out. The pop off valve was a whistle and it would scare the pants off me when it let off that high pitched whistle. I took this as a slap in the face. I would think ‘if you didn’t release that steam you would not need so much coal.’ Dad would look over one more time and I would go. Go to the coal pile, load the wheelbarrow, roll it back to the furnace and throw the coal into the furnace. This was my token job when I was at the garage. Like any kid, I wanted to help my Dad and he would let me put some coal into the wheelbarrow. The chunks of coal were too big for me to shovel and I couldn’t handle a shovel anyway. I would just load them with my hands. I would push the wheelbarrow to the furnace and Dad would unload it. It was all I could do to push the wheelbarrow to the furnace but it made me feel like I was doing my share. The coal pile was in the back room just behind the furnace. I would do this a couple of times and be exhausted. Dad would finish it up. Mom didn’t like it when I did this because I got coal dust all over me.

When we first moved to Kingman, we would get coal from Morgan’s Mine. That was a strip mine just about 3 miles from town. It had some great strip pits. Bullock Pond had some great fishing as did many of the other ponds. The tipple was located on 41. There was a big shovel parked there most of the time. This thing was the biggest piece of machinery I ever saw for a long time. I got to climb into it a couple of times. Dad knew the man that operated the machine. This thing moved by walking. It had “legs” that “walked” it to its destination. When we needed coal, either Dad would borrow a truck from someone or he would have Art Cruea or Bob Siegfried get a load for him. If Dad went I would go with him.

We used coal in the house and at the garage. I always liked the smell of coal. Our first house in Kingman had a coal furnace and our next house had coal stoves. These heaters would occasionally belch out a little smoke. That is the smoke I liked to smell. Mom always hated coal heat because it was so dirty. You would get dirty when you loaded the stove. The burning would create a fine ash and smoke in the house and then you would have to clean out the ash that was left by the burning of the coal and that would be a dirty job. And the burning of the coal would put out a black smoke from the chimney that would make everything around your house dirty. Mom had to be careful when she hung out the wash to dry. (There were no automatic dryers). If you hung the clothes out at the wrong time, they would be black with soot before they were dry.

Dad upgraded the furnace at the garage by putting in an automatic stoker. That was a large container that you would fill with stoker coal. Stoker coal was coal that was crushed into small pieces and covered with some kind of lubricant. The stoker had an auger and was connected to the furnace. The auger was turned by an electric motor and would deliver the coal to the furnace on command by means of a thermostat. Dad would fill the stoker in the morning and in the evening and that would take care of the heating. And then after a few more years he upgraded to gas and took out the old furnace. The removal of the old furnace made a lot more room in the garage but it was kind of sad. You sort of felt like the old furnace was a part of the family. I was glad because Dad didn’t have to shovel coal. He worked hard enough without having that task.

When we built the new house about 1953, we had gas heat. A central furnace with registers throughout the house. That was quite an improvement over the coal stoves that we had at Dan Newnum’s house. But you couldn’t stand next to the registers and get warm like you could stand next to the stove. But that’s progress. It was always so wonderful to stand close to the stove and warm your backside and then turn around and warm your front. You could be outside and be as cold as ice and come in and stand next to the stove and just be toastie. If you were not careful you could get your pants so hot that if they touched your leg it would hurt. That was true at the garage too. The old steam boiler was a common place to gather when it was cold outside. It didn’t get as hot on the outside because of the water circulating through it but it still felt good. That big thing would accommodate several cold bodies.