KITTS, KY

Clover Fork Coal Co. operated the coal mine at Kitts, Kentucky, from 1914 until 1958. Amazingly enough, the wood products company that owns the property now has preserved much of the colliery. And it is amazing.

2017 image by authorCompany store and tipple.

2017 image by authorElevation view of the Kitts tipple. This is probably the last really old coal tipple in Eastern Kentucky.

2017 image by authorThe railroad tracks have been taken up, but you can see where the different grades of coal dropped out of the bottom of the tipple into waiting train cars.

2017 image by authorDetail of the Kitts tipple shows it was built by Roberts and Schaefer Engineering. They were probably the number-one builder of tipples and prep plants in America into the 1970s or 1980s.

2017 image by authorAnother view of the tipple shows what is probably either a slack coal chute or a house coal chute.

2017 image by authorOld underground coal mining machinery sitting around the tipple.

2017 image by authorA coal undercutting machine. I was told that the building in the background was once a church. Heck of a location for a church.

2017 image by authorThe red brick building is the former bathhouse.

2017 image by authorMine buildings and tipple.

2017 image by authorThe "church" and company store.

2017 image by authorOn the left is the old company store, and on the right is the colliery.

2017 image by authorThe Clover Fork Coal Co. sign is still on the company store, or commissary, as people in Harlan County like to say.

2017 image by authorClover Fork Coal Company bulletin board on the commissary.

2017 image by authorMost of the Kitts coal camp has been destroyed, but these structures may be left over from the Kitts company town.