Photographed by Nikki Bowman Mills
In 2015, a woman moved home to her roots in southwestern Pennsylvania and bought an old red brick building she’d loved as a child. The woman was internationally recognized mosaic artist Rachel Sager. The building was the former office of an abandoned coal mine on the property.
The Pittsburgh coal seam ran close to the surface here at the community of Whitsett and, back in the late 1800s, small, independent mines harvested valuable bituminous coal by hand. Over time, those little mines got bought out by corporate operations that drew workers and anchored communities.
The big mines are gone now, too. But as the descendant of three generations of miners, Sager felt the history of her property powerfully all around her. And as a mosaic artist, she saw potential in the blank walls of the mine’s derelict structures. Over the past decade, she’s invited hundreds of artists to join her in creating a collaborative living art installation and memorial on those walls. The guided tour of Sager’s Ruins Project is a walk through a kaleidoscopic celebration of place.
The Ruins Project tour tells stories—depicted in mosaic art—of the coal mine that once operated on the property in Fayette County.
The tour starts at a doorless opening in the old tipple, where coal was collected for loading into railroad cars. Around the doorway, glass and imprinted clay tiles are arranged in textured patterns that blend organically into the rough old concrete and mark this as a special place.
The original mine on Sager’s property opened in 1891. It was run by the Whitsett and Luce families and, for a time, was called Rainbow Coal Company. Soon after, Pittsburgh Coal Company bought it, along with a string of other small mines that dotted the Youghiogheny River valley. The Rainbow mine was renamed, less whimsically, Banning #2, and it was the most productive of the lot, with more than 600 miners at its peak. Banning #2 operated until 1946, and the ancestors of many of today’s locals worked there. Some died there.
Sager asks artists and visitors to “honor what was.” That means respecting the labor and lives that brought coal out of the ground to be smoldered in nearby coke ovens, then sent to the Pittsburgh steel mills to power the building of this country.
The mosaics honor that, and more.
Many of the mosaic pieces are made from materials found on the site, like sandstone, shale, and Youghiogheny Glass made in Connellsville.
In the roofless room beyond that first doorway, a long glass-tile line makes its crooked way across two walls. It marks the path of the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage rail-trail that runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, and passes alongside The Ruins Project. The GAP trail is made up in part of the former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad line that served the Youghiogheny Valley mines, and Whitsett and other mining communities are located along the line on the wall. In the same room, the opposite wall holds works unified by a meander of gears of all shapes and sizes, some with teeth interlocking, many filled with round mosaics contributed by artists from all over the world.
Materials matter. Mosaic pieces here include sandstone, shale, and red dog—a mining byproduct—found on the site, Youghiogheny Glass made in nearby Connellsville, irregular pieces of fired clay, and more.
The artist, Rachel Sager, encourages visitors to honor the past and the people whose labor produced American coal and steel.
The tour wanders among crumbling walls past abstract and realistic mosaics, each with a story. A beehive with a fire at its center represents the tens of thousands of “beehive” ovens where coal was purified into hot-burning coke—this one is circled by buzzing bees. Fayette County wildlife shows up: birds, porcupines, a fox, an incredibly detailed turkey. A collection of small, multicolor hexagon mosaics by hundreds of artists brightens the exterior corner of the brick fanhouse. The dozen-foot-long shaft of an outsize arrow is artist Wendy Casperson’s yearslong project recognizing the Native people who once lived here.
One of the rooms holds mosaic portraits of real people who were connected with the mine—the face of a miner who died there at age 23, teenage sons of miners captured in a Polaroid taken just weeks after the mine closed, others. The largest installation, a 67-foot-long engine and cars of the P&LE Railroad, was completed by Pittsburgh mosaic artist Stevo in under three months.
The Ruins Project is full of stories and surprises. The opportunity to walk among the ruins of a mining operation is rare enough—but to do it while seeing its history portrayed so lovingly by a variety of artists is extraordinary.
Tours must be scheduled in advance by visiting Sager’s website—visitors without reservations are welcomed to the shop and studio only. The hour-plus walk covers level but uneven ground, so wear closed-toe shoes and dress for the weather. A great way to visit is to plan a hike or bike trip on the GAP trail—Sager Mosaics lies between mile markers 104 and 105, near the trail parking at Whitsett.
