Jim Kristoff Jr.’s father was proud of the Tuscarora coal mine he founded and operated in the 1980s.

So when James Kristoff Sr. passed away in October, his son decided to donate items from the Renegade Coal Company to the Tamaqua Historical Society Museum.

“I did it as an honor to my dad and my brother (the late Michael Kristoff) because they worked hard for that, and they were really proud of it,” Kristoff said.

Renegade Coal Company operated in the Schuylkill Township village in the 1980s. Kristoff worked a winch there for a time.

“That was it,” said Kristoff, a 1979 Tamaqua Area High School graduate who lives in Loveland, Colorado. He admitted that he’d rather stay above ground.

Renegade employed a “handful” of employees, Kristoff Jr. said, and trucked its mined coal to a breaker in South Tamaqua for processing.

He came across a number of items from the coal company when cleaning items from his father’s house in Barnesville.

Among them, he said, were a Renegade Coal Company hat, a state mining certificate issued to his late father, a carbide cap lamp, maps of the Renegade’s mines in Tuscarora and a detonator used in the mine.

All items were turned over to the museum.

As Kristoff continues to ready his father’s house for sale, he expects he will find more memorabilia.

If and when he does, he said, he will donate it to the museum.

Dale Freudenberger, society president, thanked Kristoff for helping to preserve the pieces of anthracite mining history.