History & local legend
The former Woodbury Clay Company workings near Oreminea in Blair County include a large water-filled pit identified by geologists as Oreminea No. 1. A visitor to the abandoned site photographed rusting machinery, pale clay heaps and the blue water beyond them, then retold a local flood legend.
The story fixes the disaster at 4:17 p.m. on an October day in 1940. Five workers supposedly broke through into water while opening a new face. The passage flooded, other workers fled and equipment was left behind. The five trapped men were said to remain in the workings as ghosts.
Sources
- Abandoned Pennsylvania, Woodbury Ore and Clay Mines, visitor’s account and photographs with the flood legend
- John W. Hosterman, U.S. Geological Survey (1972), p. B57 and figures 2 and 4, identifies the operator, maps both clay pits and distinguishes Oreminea No. 1
- University-hosted Woodbury Clay Company project, original Pennsylvania Railroad paperwork for the Oreminea operation in the 1930s
- OpenStreetMap, mapped water boundary in the old working
