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The Hamilton family had a very productive Jersey cow. Even though milk was used freely and they churned their own butter, there was milk left over which they didn't want to waste. So a couple of small pigs were housed in a pen in the brush below the house. One day the pigs got out and couldn't be coaxed into returning. Several men tried chasing them back, but in the thick underbrush the pigs had a lot of fun twisting and turning and eluding them. Then someone had a bright idea. There was a quiet chap they thought wasn't much good for anything else anyway. They'd give him the job and enjoy a laugh at his expense. But this fellow had something in common with the pigs —a hog call that seemed to sound to them like: "Dinner's ready". Quickly they turned and scurried to him and followed back to the pen. Both the pigs and the other men had met their match.

On April 7th, 1914, little Katherine Hamilton wandered up the hill to Mrs. Rundle's — the nearest neighbour and laconically remarked, "Well, there was a baby born in our house today. It was a boy." This was Douglas.

The company kept trying, but there seemed to be money only for war purposes. Every plan seemed frustrated or doomed for one reason or another. A man by the name of John H. Frankland made an offer to pay one million dollars in Canadian money, with no commission payable to anyone, for clear title to twelve thousand and fourteen acres of the coal land, including all equipment and improvements — said price to be paid in full upon delivery with clear titles and a correct description of all boundaries and claims included therein. It seemed like a way out. Unfortunately Mr. Frankland went to Vancouver and very unexpectedly died before the deal was completed. Different mines in the Pass offered to buy certain portions of the coal lands, or the coke ovens which they didn't have at their own mines. Even the C.P.R. proffered a distress bid. Most mining men in the area, knowing the quality of the coal, and the modern plant, that was able and ready to produce, were sure it was bound to operate again, and that someone would step in to achieve this. The war years created an atmosphere very difficult for such an investment.

A very modest amount of money by today's standards would have saved the situation, and preserved this well-built plant and valuable coal lands, as a much needed industry and source of revenue and employment. But governments had not yet envisaged the sustaining roll they could play, nor established funds for such purposes.

Eventually a deal was negotiated by Joe Little whereby the Maple Leaf Mine, (later the Mohawk) would mine the Passburg coal from the north end of the seam which ran close to their workings. He received a very lucrative royalty for completing this deal. But most of the expensive machinery, high class fire brick and extensive trestles and buildings were ignominiously wasted. Even the manager's landmark stone bungalow was senselessly dynamited. In spite of all these losses, in very recent years, a sale of comparatively the same property was made for fifteen million dollars, not of course, by the original owners.

This big plant had been planned and built by pioneers without any of the modern technological or financial aids. There were no trucks, tractors, big whirling cement carriers. Everything was done with horses, manual labor, and dreams of the future. The future has come and today there are millions of dollars poured into equipment and development of all kinds, and world markets have opened up. Where they were getting one dollar and fifty cents per ton for their coal, today they are getting fifty-six dollars per long ton. The future has come, but not for the men, the pioneers, who struggled so hard. Take away all today's modern advantages, technology and equipment, not to mention finance — could today's men equal those who built this part of our history? They worked so very hard and died without benefitting. But sixty years later the country has opened up and many others have benefitted, without the necessity of even knowing what it was like to single-handedly face such insuperable odds.

This article is extracted from Crowsnest and its People: Millennium Edition (Coleman, Alberta, Crowsnest Pass Historical Society, 2000.)The Heritage Community Foundation and the Year of the Coal Miner Consortium would like to thank the authors and the Crowsnest Pass Historical Society for permission to reprint this material.

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