Miners Museum memorial walkway unveiling will be Saturday
This Saturday at 11 a.m. there will be an unveiling ceremony for the second phase of the Memorial Brick Walkway at the Coal Creek Miners Museum in Rocky Top.
The special walkway contains bricks bought by museum donors, many of them engraved with the names of former miners and their family members.
Museum officials said the fundraising campaign that involved donors buying the engraved bricks was designed to help memorialize those who lost their lives in two major mining disasters in the area in the early 1900s.
Besides the unveiling of the newest section of the walkway, there will also be a book-signing by author Austin Sauerbrei, author of the graphic novel “Trouble! At Coal Creek.”
The book “brings to life the powerful and inspiring story of the Coal Creek labor uprising and the convict leasing system through vivid illustrations and compelling storytelling, connecting younger generations to the deep roots of our community’s history,” a museum announcement of the event said.
While the walkway unveiling will take place outside, the book signing will be inside the museum, at 201 S. Main St.
During the unveiling of the first section of the walkway in 2024, supporters and city officials turned out in front of the museum on Independence Day to participate in a ribbon-cutting event.
The museum began the fund-raising campaign the museum began in fall 2023 to help pay for upgrades, including a new second floor of exhibits. The bulk of the money for the work came from a $50,000 grant from the state of Tennessee in 2023.
Awarded through a program of the Tennessee State Museum, the grant allowed the museum to add heating and air conditioning, along with ADA-compliant restrooms, on the second floor. That included installation of an elevator to give disabled people access to the second floor.
Located in a former bank building next to the Rocky Top City Hall, the museum is dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of coal mining in the Coal Creek area, with emphasis on the industry’s impact on the region, and the tragedies that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of miners.
Volunteer curator Lisa Pebley said in 2023 that the second-floor exhibits would help chronicle the local coal industry from the 1940s until its end in the early 2000s.
The main floor, which has been open for several years, details the industry’s impact from its beginning in the 1800s when Henry Howard Wiley brought Welsh miners in to start mining in the area, through the war years in the 1940s, Pebley said.
The former bank vault on the main floor holds exhibits telling the story of the Fraterville mine explosion on May 19, 1902, which resulted in the deaths of 216 miners.
