MINE MUSEUM FOUNDER VOWS TO LIVE UNDERGROUND FOR FUNDS

WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. -- The founder of the financially troubled National Coal Museum says he will live underground in the museum's defunct mine until donors come up with $2 million to help build a national miners memorial.

"I'm ready to stay here," former coal miner Chris Ledvina said Thursday. "This place is fighting for its life."

The wait could be a long one. Ledvina has had trouble raising enough money to pay overdue power bills, and the museum already runs at an annual deficit of $250,000.

Ledvina, 47, opened the donated mine to tours in 1996, using private contributions and part of his settlement from a 1978 mine roof fall that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Since then, Ledvina said, the museum has attracted 70,000 visitors for 1-hour, $10 tours of the shuttered Old Ben No. 25 mine.

Ledvina wants to expand the operation to include a granite miners memorial at the nearby Orient No. 2 mine, the site of a 1951 explosion that killed 119 men. The memorial would include the names of nearly 200,000 American miners who have died in accidents since the early 1800s.

Such a memorial would help the museum the attract the tourism it needs to overcome financial problems, Ledvina said. The Orient No. 2 site is near an interstate, while the Old Ben mine is more than seven miles from the highway along a narrow country lane.

Ledvina descended into the 600-foot-deep mine on Monday. He is living on a cot in the mine manager's office, with a makeshift office set up in one of the mine's coal-lined tunnels. He is spending his time working the telephones -- mostly doing interviews.

So far, the stunt has gained the attention of the local media, but no money. Ledvina says the $2 million will get the museum started -- and at least $250,000 will go to fund the museum's existing operations. Ledvina estimates the total cost of a national memorial at $18 million.

Larry Barton, a former miner who now works at the museum, said he doesn't know if Ledvina's effort will work, but it's worth a try.

"Hey, we've done everything else in the world," he said.

The museum was briefly shut down in January after falling more than five months behind on its power bill. The museum also has been in trouble with county officials over unpaid property taxes.