Antique real photo postcard, "Miners coming from work. Toluca Ill. 2109." - the Toluca coal mine tipple complex in full: timber trestle loading chutes, smokestack, elevated water tank, slack piles, with miners in their heavy coats alongside the dirt road below the tipple. Sepia RPPC, captioned on the negative (numbered series).
History: Toluca's mines were sunk by the Devlin Coal Company (Santa Fe Railroad interests, 11,000 acres of mineral rights, two shafts, longwall method) from 1893; the workforce was largely Irish, Polish, Serbian, Lithuanian and Italian immigrants; the mine closed in 1924 - its giant slag heaps, 'The Jumbos,' still mark the town today.
Postal history: posted NOV 24, 1907 with a 1c green Franklin stamp - the first year of the divided-back era; addressed to J. S. Thompson in large flourished penmanship.
Condition: Good - good sepia tone, light corner rounding, minor edge wear and surface specks; back clean. Full original scans, edges intact.
A documented coal-mining occupational RPPC for the industrial-history and postcard collector.
Rarity (researched 2026): searches of the 53-million-item Delcampe marketplace return zero other Toluca coal-mine postcards ("Toluca miners", "Toluca mine", "Toluca coal mine" - 0 hits; the only "Toluca" cards on the open market are Mexican views and a Bing Crosby Toluca Lake card), and open items show no other Toluca mine material. A near-unique survivor documenting the town’s defining industry - Devlin Coal Co. (Santa Fe Railroad interests) sank the shafts in 1893; the mines, worked largely by Italian, Irish, Polish, Serbian and Lithuanian immigrant labor, peaked around 1905 with 700+ men and closed in 1924, leaving the giant "Jumbo" slag heaps that still mark the town. A true one-of-market industrial card.
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