Dropped this one in an old coke oven out in the woods.
A COKE OVEN is a fire brick chamber shaped like a dome, commonly known as a beehive oven. It is typically 4 meters (13.1 ft) wide and 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) high, and in western Pennsylvania the coke ovens were built into a hillside beside railroad tracks. The roof has a hole for filling with bituminous coal from the top. In a coke oven battery, a number of ovens are built in a row with common walls between neighboring ovens. A battery consisted of a great many ovens, sometimes hundreds, in a row.
Coal is introduced from the top to produce an even layer of about 60 to 90 centimeters (23.6 to 35.4 in) deep. Air is supplied initially to ignite the coal. Carbonization starts and produces volatile matter, which burns inside the partially closed side. Carbonization proceeds from top to bottom and is completed in two to three days. Heat is supplied by the burning volatile matter. The exhaust gases are allowed to escape to the atmosphere. The hot coke is quenched with water and unloaded, manually through the side of the oven. The walls and roof retain enough heat to initiate carbonization of the next batch.
Western Pennsylvania had many rich veins of bituminous coal running underground. Coal miners spent 12 hours a day underground digging coal that was shipped to beehive coke ovens where it was burned to produce COKE. Workers at the beehive ovens inhaled the noxious fumes from the burning process and many developed lung cancer.
Cokes made from coal are grey, hard, and porous. Coke burns hotter than coal so it was a better heat source when burned in the steel industry. After World War II most beehive coke ovens closed down in favor of by-product coke ovens.