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Quecreek Mine Rescue Site

On July 24, 2002, miners working in the Quecreek Mine accidentally dug into an adjacent abandoned mine, flooding the Quecreek Mine. A group of nine miners were trapped 240 feet underground for 77 hours. A 30-inch diameter hole was dug at this dairy farm to reach the men, all of whom were rescued safely.

The site of the rescue and its remaining structural artifacts have been converted to a modest museum, with a memorial to the rescue workers and to coal miners everywhere who risk their lives daily to provide us with energy.

Fittingly, Somerset County is also home (as of this writing) to a pair of wind farms, the beginnings of a new energy infrastructure that will someday make coal obsolete.

Next: Somerset Wind Power Project