My father owned a '78' of Sixteen Tons in the mid '50s. We played it to death on our old wind-up 'new needle each play' gramophone. It was sung by Larry Cross, and had 'Travis' in brackets under the singer's name. Larry Cross had the deepest voice I'd ever heard, and we'd listen to the song just to hear the final word 'store' sung, it seemed to a 'D' in the third octave below middle 'C'. A far better rendition, to my ears, than Tennessee Ernie Ford's.
Frank