Armstrong County
Twenty people on the limestone, under a local holder
The Mine Safety and Health Administration records 20 employees at the limestone quarry near this place, held by Buffalo Limestone. It lies 2.65 miles from the Census centre.
That is a mid-sized operation by the standards of this county, where payrolls on the record run from one person to sixty-eight.
Five restricted crossings in ten miles, and not one of them is the county’s
Beyond the quarry, the roads are easier here than the coal country west of them. Within ten miles the National Bridge Inventory records 140 structures and only 5 coded below legal loads — and of those 5, none at all are county-maintained while 3 belong to townships.
The nearest of them is 6.32 miles away, which is a long way for a restriction to sit from a working quarry. The lowest rating among them is about eight US tons, and the lowest that clears the commercial floor is about twenty-three.
So the binding constraint here is not the crossing. It is grade and distance, and the fact that the authority posting the few restricted bridges is the township rather than the county.
West into the Indiana County coal, where the payrolls get big
Those township roads run out towards soft coal. The Crooked Creek preparation plant is 14.0 miles off and the Crooked Creek mine 14.1 miles away at Creekside with 57 people on it, while Fulton Run works 14.2 miles out at Shelocta.
Nearer in, the Dutch Run workings sit 10.0 and 10.7 miles away and the Parkwood Mine 10.3 miles off with 68 people — the largest payroll within fifteen miles of this place among the sites that report one.
Coal preparation is a different rhythm from a quarry. It runs to a plant schedule rather than to a construction season, so the work is steadier through the year and the trucks accumulate hours more evenly.
A body that ran limestone and later carried bituminous coal out towards Shelocta is ordinary here, and it leaves two different residues. Between the Parkwood Mine 10.3 miles off and the Crooked Creek mine 14.1 miles away the runs are real distances rather than a shuttle.
- Ordinary between the Dutch Run workings and the limestone here.
- Around the Crooked Creek mine that is most of the work. No difference to how we buy it.
Coal work and quarry work want different trucks, and when a contract moves from one to the other the truck often does not follow it.
Those trucks end up standing between Creekside 14.1 miles off and Shelocta 14.2 miles away, along with the usual retirements and estates.