BENHAM, KY

Jan. 2007 image by author Downtown Benham, KY, was a coal company town built by Wisconsin Steel Company, which was a subsidiary of International Harvester. Kentucky did not have as many beehive coke ovens as West Virginia or Pennsylvania, but there were once coke ovens at Benham.

Jan. 2007 image by author The former company store in Benham, KY, is now the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum.

Jan. 2007 image by author Some of the coal camp houses in Benham. Wisconsin Steel constructed the town between 1911 and 1919.

Jan. 2007 image by author Smaller company-built houses in Benham. The Benham mines were still owned and operated by International Harvester in the 1970s, but by the time the mines closed in the 1980s, they were run by Arch of Kentucky.