WINDBER — The new mining company in town has stepped in to save the museum that tells the story of this former company town and the industry that dominated much of the region.

The Windber Coal Heritage Center museum and building have been sold for $250,000 to Kittanning-based Rosebud Mining Co.

"We are happy to help keep the center open for the community, and celebrate the hard-working coal miners that provide America with half of its electricity each and every day," Rosebud President Cliff Forrest said Monday in a press release. Exhibits will reopen within a few months.

Loss of federal and state funding and low attendance prompted museum owner The Progress Fund to put the building on the market and announce in December the museum would not reopen this season.

The Progress Fund is a nonprofit corporation that provides loans to the tourist industry in southwestern Pennsylvania and nearby states, said David Kahley, president and chief executive officer. Operating the museum was “almost a sidebar,” he said.

“I am really happy Rosebud has the museum,” Kahley said. “They needed a building in Windber and they thought the coal story was important.”

Windber was founded as the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. town. Museum displays include an historical map showing neighborhoods where immigrant workers lived in company-owned houses and shopped in the company-owned Eureka Department Store.

Rosebud in 2007 reopened former Bethlehem Steel Mine 78 and a coal processing facility just outside the borough.

A conference room in the museum building would be useful, Rosebud spokesman Jim Barker said.

“We have a large preparation plant and mine there,” Barker said. “It would be nice to have a large meeting area. I don’t believe we will have any full-time office staff, but you never know what the future will bring.”

Hours and staffing of the museum will be determined in the next few weeks, Barker said.

“We just want to keep the doors open,” he said.

Fears that the Coal Heritage Center could close sent prompted Johnstown Area Heritage Association in December to offer to move the exhibit and include the coal mining story at its Heritage Discovery Center in Johnstown.

Rosebud’s decision to keep the exhibits in place preserves the original intent of the museum, said Sandra Pritt of the Eureka Coal Heritage Foundation.

“It was always designed to tell the coal mining story in Windber,” Pritt said. “Of course we were anxious to keep that here. It is a major investment in this town.”

The Eureka group purchased the former post office building in 1992 and spearheaded development of the museum.

It obtained a $2,128,348 federal grant through Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission and opened Windber Coal Heritage Center on May 1, 1997. The Progress Fund took over ownership 11 years ago as part of a management agreement.

New features and programs were introduced to keep the exhibit fresh.

The Rescue@Quecreek interactive exhibit opened in 2006, featuring artifacts and recordings from the 2002 rescue of nine miners who were trapped underground for more than 78 hours when Quecreek Mine flooded in Somerset County.

Concerns raised

Berwind Natural Resources and other legacies of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. have been strong supporters of the museum, which led to some criticism among labor activists. The sale to Rosebud did not quiet the critics.

Advocates faced challenges to have some union memorabilia included at the Coal Heritage Center, said Windber native and historian Mildred Beik, author of “The Miners of Windber – The Struggles of New Immigrants for Unionization, 1890s-1930s.”

“I think it has always basically been run by the company,” Beik said in a telephone interview from her Pittsburgh home. “Berwind had a big influence on the museum.”

“I never liked the museum,” miner’s daughter Ann Mehalco Roy of Railroad Street said. “I always thought it was pro-Berwind. This just gives Rosebud another thing to influence the town.”

Roy, 80, has been a vocal critic of Rosebud’s truck traffic through her neighborhood.

Kahley defended the exhibit as covering all aspects of mining.

“The only ones who can say that are the ones who have never been there,” Kahley said. “It does not hold the coal companies up on a pedestal.”

Barker said the company was not aware of past criticism.

“It’s a celebration of the miners,” Barker said, “It is not going to be a museum about Rosebud.”

Mayor Simon “Red” Ohler welcomed news that the museum would survive, but raised eyebrows over the $250,000 sale price. Borough Council had been eyeing the museum building as a possible new home for municipal offices. The current borough building is in need of major renovation work to address mold and asbestos health hazards.

“We offered them a lot more than that,” Ohler said. “Oh well, it is what it is. If they can increase tourism, that will be a good thing for the town.”