Frustrated residents of this western Schuylkill County community resorted to human blockades to stop the parade of rumbling coal trucks moving through their town and depositing dirt and dust into their homes.

“This is the last means we have of attempting to stop the dirt and dust,” said one of 32 women who stood in the streets on September 30, 1958. The blockade took place for three days in the village of Sheridan, on the western outskirts of Tower City. This village sat beneath the towering culm banks of the shuttered West Brookside Colliery.

In the 1950s, the culm banks were being removed as they contained valuable coal that could be extracted. The Tunnel Ridge Coal Company operated a breaker above the village, separating coal from rock before the coal was loaded onto trucks and sent to market. Coal and rock were being brought into process from neighboring culm banks at Williamstown and Wiconisco as well.

The trucks and breaker combined to coat every home in Sheridan in layers of black dust that found their way into homes on an every day basis.

The “Pottsville Republican” described the scene at the protest:

“The women set up their human barricade at 8:45a.m. on the three Sheridan side streets leading to the breaker. By 9:15, there were some six trucks halted on E. Grand Ave. (Route 209) and N. George St. with one other vehicle, leaving the breaker, stopped on Mill St.

Mrs. Margaret Wetzel, speaking for the women halting trucks on N. George St. said the group representing the Sheridan Improvement Association.

‘You can’t have your doors and windows open the summer,’ she said. ‘Just about everything gets covered with a film of dust.’

The N. George St. group, about 15 in number, were attired in house dresses and sweaters. Two children joined their mothers in the protest. At the start they utilized a wooden highway barrier to halt the trucks. One woman carried a small American flag.”

A Pennsylvania State Police trooper arrived on the scene and ordered the women to vacate. They refused, stating that they were on Porter Township streets and that the State Police had no jurisdiction. The human barricades remained.

“The blockades on all three streets were orderly. Good natured joshing took place between the women and stalled truck drivers. However, sharp words flew back and forth on occasions between the group congregated on Route 209 at N. George St. and the women barricading the street,” wrote the Republican reporter on the scene.

By 10:15, the Tunnel Ridge Coal Company operation stretching from Tower City to Wiconisco ground to a halt, as no coal could be processed or shipped.

The dust was really only a visible reason for a protest in Tower City. An underlying reason for the protest was the use of workers from outside the area at the Tunnel Ridge operation.

“Most of the people who are against the passage of these trucks are the wives and sisters of former Brookside workers,” said Donald Updegrove, a Tower City resident. Updegrove pointed out that many of the protesters did not live directly along the route used by the trucks to and from the Tunnel Ridge breaker at Sheridan. Updegrove did note that many of those working at the operation were from outside of Tower City, meaning that many local truck drivers and workers had to drive far from town for work.

Whatever their reason, the protest continued. Interviewed at the protest site that day, an unidentified woman said: “We will be there tomorrow and the day after that and keep at it until we get some relief from the dust.”

The blockade remained until Thursday, October 2, when an agreement was made with the protesters and the lawyer representing the coal company to host a public meeting about the dust issue. A series of meetings followed that heard the grievances of area residents, while allowing work to continue.

The breaker remained, the trucks rolled on, and the dust eventually settled in the years that followed when the culm banks were carried away and the breaker closed forever.

(Photograph: Protesters blocking N. George Street in Sheridan while truck driver Michael Suchar of Williamstown looks on – Pottsville Republican)

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