AMONATE, VA
Construction of Amonate, VA was started in the early 1920s by Faraday Coal & Coke. In 1923 Pocahontas Fuel took over the operation and at that point named it Amonate - a nickname of Native American princess Pocahontas. It was probably Pocahonats Fuel, not Faraday Coal,
that built most of the town. It was a model coal comapny town with nice homes and sidewalk.
Not all of the company houses are two story in Amonate. Amonate housed the miners that worked in Mines No. 30, 31, and 32.
This old church is Amonate is almost the same design at another one of Pocahontas Fuel Company's coal camps - Jenkinjones.
Amonate was one of the very last of the original coal towns from the Golden Age of Appalachian Coal Mining to still have its coal mine. Consol Energy - who,as Consolidation Coal Co.
absorbed Pocahontas Fuel Co. in the 1950s - was still operating the Amonate mine until 2012, when the idled it due to poor market conditions.
Pocahontas Fuel Co. built the Amonate prep plant a short distance away from the Amonate, Va. coal company town. In fact, it was just over the state line in W.Va.Consolidation Coal Co.
absorbed Pocahontas in the 1950s, and it became a Consol mine. It was idled
at the time of this photo. Although it had been modernized, parts of the plant were over 60 years old.
On the other side of Amonate from the preparation plant is this railroad trestle that is so large that I couldn't even get it all in the same picture.
Jan. 2017 image by author
Jan. 2017 image by author
Jan. 2017 image by author
Jan. 2017 image by author
Jan. 2017 image by author
Jan. 2017 image by author
