Beneath the city of Bellingham lie the memories of coal mines

For more than 30 years, the men and horses of the Bellingham Coal Mines toiled beneath the city, using dynamite and muscle power to carve a labyrinth of passageways through a thick coal seam. Over their heads was a ceiling of crumbly slate rock, held up— if all went well— by log timbers and pillars of coal itself.

Bill Wegley, 82, was among the last of the Bellingham coal miners, working in the Bellingham Coal Mines for three weeks just before the operation shut down in 1955. As an Alaska gillnetter and part-time longshoreman, Wegley was no stranger to a hard day's work, but he found mining a bit much.

"It caved in three times in those three weeks. The last time it buried me clear up to here in coal," Wegley said, holding a hand to his waist.