The Consolidation Coal Company (BBC) was founded in 1875 in Iowa and purchased by the Chicago and North Western Railroad in 1880 in order to secure a local source of coal. 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. In 1900, the company purchased in southern Mahaska County and northern Monroe County, Iowa.
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."Gradwohl, David M., and Nancy M. Osborn (1984/1990), Exploring Buried Buxton: Archaeology of an Abandoned Iowa Coal Mining Town with a Large Black Population, Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, p. 188, available online through Project MUSE 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. Buxton was an active town until about 1925, when the CCC opened camps closer to its new mines. It had become the largest unincorporated city in the nation and the largest coal town west of the Mississippi River.Exhibit: No Roads Lead to Buxton , n.d., African American Museum of Iowa, 2016 In 1927 the mine closed and by the late 1930s, Buxton had been totally abandoned. The coal markets had changed after World War I, and the workers dispersed to other locales and cities across the country.
Consolidation's Mine No. 18 in Buxton was probably the largest bituminous coal mine in Iowa.Greg A. Brick, Iowa Underground, Trails Books, 2004; Chapter 42, pp. 143-144. By 1913, the Buxton UMWA union local was reported to have "at least 80 percent colored men." In 1914, Buxton had 5,000 people and was the largest town in the United States to be "populated and governed entirely or almost entirely by Negroes."Monroe N. Work, ed., "Negro Towns and Settlements in the United States," Negro Year Book 1914–1915: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, Negro Year Book Company, Tuskegee Institute, 1914; page 298.
Beginning in 1880, Consolidation was one of the first northern industrial employers to make large-scale use of African-American labor. It recruited Southern black workers as strike breakers, most of whom came from mining regions of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, and retained them. Those working at Muchakinock and Buxton were given equal pay to white workers and lived in integrated communities. Due to its regional and national significance, the townsite of Buxton was surveyed for archeological resources and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Muchakinock The town name was also spelled MuchachinockFourth Biennial Report of the State Mine Inspectors to the Governor of the State of Iowa for the Years 1888 and 1889, Ragsdale, Des Moines, 1889; see for example, page 73. and, more rarely, Muchikinock.Report: Contested Election Case – J. C. Cook vs. M. E. Cutts, United States Congressional Serial Set, Section III, Washington, DC, Feb. 19, 1883. Coal mining along Muchakinock Creek dates to 1843, when local blacksmiths mined coal from exposures along the creek. By 1867, small drift mines were developed all along Muchakinock Creek down to Eddyville, where the creek flows into the Des Moines River. In 1873, the Iowa Central Railroad built a branch along Muchakinock Creek.
The Consolidation Coal Company was formed in 1875 by the merger of the Iowa Central Coal Company and the Black Diamond Mines of Coalfield in Monroe County, Iowa, and the Eureka Mine in Beacon, Iowa. 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.James H. Lees, "History of Coal Mining in Iowa," Chapter III of Iowa Geological Survey Annual Report, 1908, Des Moines, 1909; page 556-558
The coal camp at Muchakinock was about south of the county seat of Oskaloosa Topographical Map of Mahaska County, Iowa, Huebinger's Atlas of the State of Iowa, Iowa Publishing Co., 1904 and it quickly developed as one of the most prosperous and largest coal camps in Iowa."Iowa's Pioneer Coal Operators," Eighth Biennial Report of the State Mine Inspectors to the Governor of the State of Iowa for the Two Years Ending June 30, 1897, Conway, Des Moines, 1897; page 76. Consolidation Mine No. 1 was opened in 1873. The Muchachinock US post office operated from 1874 to 1904, with an official name change to Muchakinock in 1886.Muchakinock Post Office (historical), in the USGS Geographic Names Information System
In 1880, the company had a dispute with its workers in Muchakinock. J. E. Buxton, Consolidation's superintendent, sent Major Thomas Shumate south to hire African Americans as strike breakers. Shumate hired "lots of crowds" of "colored men" from Virginia. Whole families arrived with each "crowd". "Bringing these men to the mines, and the employment of colored miners was a new thing." The first "crowd" arrived in Muchakinock on March 5, 1880. By October 6, 1880 Shumate had brought in six "crowds". The "third crowd" filled one railroad passenger car. It left Staunton, Virginia on May 12 and traveled via Chicago and Marshalltown, Iowa, arriving in Muchakinock on May 15. Rail fare from Virginia to Iowa was $12, which the company paid and took as an advance against each miner's monthly wages. The new African-American employees proved so satisfactory that the company retained them after the end of the strike. In years to come, the company attributed much of its wealth to their labor."Negro Governments in the North," The American Review of Reviews, XXXVIII, New York, Oct. 1908; page 472 The company paid black and white workers equally, and did not permit segregation in housing or schools in its camps and towns.
In 1884, the Chicago and Northwestern completed a branch from Belle Plaine to Muchakinock.Annual Report of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company for the Twenty-Sixth Fiscal Year Ending May 31, 1885 By then, Mines 1, 2, 3 and 5 were operating in Muchakinock. No. 6 was a shaft mine, newly opened just north of the camp.Second Biennial Report of the State Mine Inspector to the Governor of the State of Iowa for the Years 1884 and 1885; pages 38, 57.
By 1887, the African-American workers in Muchakinock had organized a mutual protection society. Members paid fifty cents a month, or $1 per family. 80% of this paid for health insurance, while the remainder went into a sinking fund to cover members' burial expenses. The coal company acted as banker to this society.Portrait and Biographical Album of Mahaska County, Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1887; pages 522–523
By 1893, Consolidation Mines No. 6 and 7, located about south of Oskaloosa, produced 1550 tons of coal per day, employing 489 men and boys. No. 6 had a shaft, while No. 7 had a shaft. Both mines worked the same coal seam, using the double-entry room and pillar system of mining.John W. Canty, Biennial Report of the Second District, Sixth Biennial Report of the State Mine Inspectors to the Governor of the State of Iowa for the Two Years Ending June 30, 1893, Ragsdale, Des Moines, 1893; pages 50–51
Mine No. 8 was three miles (5 km) northwest of Muchakinock.
The Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike of 1894 lasted from late April through May of that year. All of Iowa's coal miners went on strike, with the exception of the miners at Muchakinock and Evans (8 miles north along Muchakinock Creek). 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. In the end, no shots were fired.Thomas J. Hudson, Iowa Chapter VIII, "Events from Jackson to Cummins," The Province and the States, Vol. V, the Western Historical Association, 1904; page 170"The National Guard – Iowa's Splendid Militia," The Midland Monthly, Vol. II, No. 5 Nov. 1894; page 419."Service at Muchakinock and Evans, in Mahaska County, During the Coal Miners' Strike," Report of the Adjutant-General to the Governor of the State of Iowa for Biennial Period Ending Nov. 30, 1895, Conway, Des Moines: 1895; page 18
African Americans headed numerous institutions in Muchakinock. The "colored" Baptist church in town was led by Rev. T. L. Griffith.T. L. Griffith, "The Colored Baptists of Iowa," The Baptist Home Mission Monthly, Vol. XXI, No. 7, July 1899, page 286. Samuel J. Brown, the first African American to receive a bachelor's degree from the State University of Iowa, was principal of the Muchakinock public school.Who's Who of the Colored Race, Frank L. Mather, Chicago, 1915; page 45.Robert B. Slater, "The First Black Graduates of the Nation's 50 Flagship State Universities," The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 13 (Autumn, 1996); pages 72–85 B. F. Cooper was noted as one of only two "colored" pharmacists in the state."Two Colored Pharmacists," American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, Vol. XXX, No 12, June 25, 1897; page 357
Muchakinock reached a peak population of about 2,500, but by 1900, the coal of the Muchakinock valley was largely exhausted. 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. Today, acid mine drainage and red piles of shale are all that remain of the mines along Muchakinock Creek."Muchakinock Creek – Improving water quality for the future" , Iowa Department of Natural Resources, 2005; page 3.
Buxton As early as 1888, a few small mines were in operation along Bluff Creek, but this changed at the dawn of the 20th century. 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 . The camp was named by B. C. Buxton after his father, John E. Buxton, who had managed the mines at Muchakinock. The company created a planned community that was developed along a regular grid pattern. 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."[Gradwohl and Osborn (1984/1990), Exploring Buried Buxton], p. 189, available online through Project MUSE The US Post Office at Buxton operated from 1901 to 1923.Buxton Post Office (historical), in the USGS Geographic Names Information System
Many black workers moved here from Muchakinock. 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.