By Rachelle Chase

 

H.W. McNeill was livid. By 1874, with the aid of investors, he had purchased four coal mines in Mahaska County, merged them into Consolidation Coal Co. and formed one of the largest coal mining operations in Iowa. Priding himself on his fairness, he split profits equally with his miners, paying them shares based on the proportion mined or 75 cents per ton, whichever was larger. But now, in the Fall of 1879, the men were striking for more pay.

 

Outraged, in February 1880, McNeill penned a letter to the Oskaloosa Herald, intent on proving the competitive wages he paid his men by listing their names, bushels extracted and amount paid. Unimpressed, an anonymous miner fired back a rebuttal, claiming that the market price of coal, the miners’ costs and the hours men were required to work had all gone up.

 

The men were not willing to compromise on the amount they demanded.

 

A still-angry McNeill was determined not to give in to their demands.

 

But, with outstanding contracts with the railroad to fill, he found he had no choice but to capitulate — that time. The second time they demanded more, he let them strike.

 

The strike had come at a bad time. The railroad industry was booming, with companies like the Chicago & North Western Railroad expanding tracks. This expansion enabled them to increase the goods their trains were able to haul, thus requiring more coal to keep the trains running to enable delivery of the goods. McNeill needed the mines running and the coal coming to keep up with the demand. He could not afford to have the mines idle for long.

 

Which meant he needed to hire strikebreakers.

 

McNeill knew just who to hire: Black men from Virginia. Reportedly, he had been considering doing this before the strike — perhaps after learning of the practice from coal companies in Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, or even in Boone, Monroe, or Lucas counties in Iowa. But the strike cemented his decision. By Feb. 26, 1880, he had discharged the disgruntled miners, placed an ad in the Valley Virginian seeking “colored” men to come work in his mines, and was in Staunton, Va., interviewing men who, once hired, would be on the train to Muchakinock — about five miles south of Oskaloosa — five or six days later.

 

He made the first trip with the help of two recruiters. One was Hobe Armstrong, a wealthy African-American in Muchakinock who had close business ties with the company. The second was Maj. Thomas Shumate, an ex-Confederate soldier from Virginia, who McNeill would later hire to continue with recruitment and resettling the men in Muchakinock. The first trip netted approximately 65 men.

 

The hiring of these Southern black men to replace the striking white ones was an experiment which, if successful, McNeil vowed to continue. The men proved to be hard workers, making the experiment an overwhelming success. So much so that Consolidation Coal Co. continued to recruit the men, even when there were no strikes. According to J.K. Graves, a business partner and investor in the company, a year later, the black miners had loaded about 200,000 tons of coal in 1880 alone.

 

By 1881, with McNeill running the business and his brother, W.A. McNeill, handling the finances, Consolidation Coal Co. was even more successful. There were three high-performing mines and Muchakinock was growing, with its hundreds of residents and businesses, including a drugstore, saloon, church and a company store. But McNeill, worn down by the strikes, was ready to sell. In exchange for $500,000, he turned over the Consolidation Coal Co. to the Chicago & North Western Railroad, which was still expanding throughout Iowa and in need of a captive mine — one that would supply all coal mined to the railroad. McNeill recommended John Emory (J.E.) Buxton take over as superintendent.

 

It is unclear how the two men came to be acquainted. Though J.E. Buxton was new to the role of superintendent, he was not new to the railroad or mining. From a prominent family in Middletown Springs, Vt., he had sold his interest in the family farm to his brother and headed west in 1867, where he had become a buyer for the Chicago & North Western Railroad and a mine inspector in Boone County. Under J.E. Buxton and the Chicago & North Western Railroad, Muchakinock flourished, aided by the continued practice of hiring African-Americans by the new management and owners.

 

Within six years, Muchakinock had grown to between 1,600 and 1,800 residents, making it the largest unincorporated mining town in Iowa. The company operated four mines that employed 500 miners, of which 70 percent were black. The remaining population was American-born, as well as those who had emigrated from Sweden, the British Isles, Germany, Norway and other countries. According to former residents, there was no segregation.

 

By 1898, there were more than 3,800 residents and a number of businesses, including the company store (which employed three black clerks), three restaurants, two saloons, poolrooms, a meat shop, a shoe repair shop, two barbershops, a dressmaker, a livery stable, black and white churches and lodges, plus grade schools (with two black teachers), an all-black band and baseball team, a black newspaper, a black constable and a black justice of the peace.

 

In 1897, 58-year-old J.E. Buxton decided he had had enough. Passing the superintendent job to his son, Ben Buxton, he returned to Vermont, where he bought the farm back from his brother and resumed running it.

 

Most likely, Ben Buxton was being prepared for the job long before his father made it official. In 1889, according to the Feb. 2 issue of The Northwestern, the student and alumni publication from Northwestern University where Ben Buxton had attended and would later graduate in 1891 — Ben Buxton was working in a “railroad office” in Oskaloosa.

 

Ben Buxton’s first major responsibility was the creation of the Iowa town that would replace Muchakinock, once the mines played out: Buxton.

 

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