Significant progress has been made on the Black Diamond Historical Society’s plans to erect a coal miner memorial statue and wall outside of its building.

According to President Keith Watson, a part of the boardwalk outside the museum has been cleared to make room for the pedestal and wall.

Historical society members have also raised about 50 percent of the funds necessary.

“So far it’s been pretty darn good,” Watson said.

The project is estimated to cost $100,000, though Watson said the society and its members have done much of the grunt work to keep the spending as low as possible.

Watson said the statue is expected to be completed by February 2013. Before it is placed on the four-foot-tall pedestal, however, he said they intend to display it in the museum.

They also plan to create a miners honor garden on a small slope behind the pedestal and wall. There will also be several granite benches opposite of the memorial statue, adjacent to the old fire house.

The historical society started the project about two months ago after members visited the coal mining town of Roslyn near Cle Elum.

There, they were impressed by the town’s memorial statue and wall dedicated to its miner population.

With Black Diamond’s wall however, they intend to have not just the names of miners who worked in the Black Diamond mines, but all coal miners killed in the state.

The reason for this, he said, is because miners often moved around to find work and consequently ended up in different towns such as Franklin, Lawson and Ravensdale.

The historical society was able to obtain the names from Palmer Coking Coal Company, which had acquired them from the state.

“They’ve been very beneficial,” Watson said.

Gomer Evans, a member of the historical society and whose father was a fire boss in the mines, believes this will help make the wall a statewide, rather than local attraction.

“There’s never been anything to commemorate those who are still down there in the coal mines,” he said. “You left your family in the morning for work and hoped you would come back alive.”

As a way to raise funds, the historical society is selling bricks to be laid on the walkway.

“Hopefully from the sale of the bricks we can get (the rest of) the funding,” Evans said. “It doesn’t have to be someone who their dad was a coal miner. It could be a gesture of goodwill.”

The hope, Evans said, is to have the wall and the statue completed for the opening of Miners Day in July 2013.

Ellensburg artist Paul Crites is working on the statue.