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KYLE, WV
Kyle is a small coal
camp just upstream of Northfork. Lynchburg Coal & Coke Co. ran the Lynchburg coal mine at Kyle from the 1891 until 1940.
Like other coal operations along Elkhorn Creek, mining was in the Pocahontas No. 3 coal seam, and some of it was coked in beehive coke ovens.
Company houses and the Norfolk-Southern railroad.
Another view of the coal camp while standing on the railroad.
Between these two old coal camp houses sits a little "coal
house," where the coal company would deposit each family's coal, then deduct it from the miner's pay. This coal house served both homes, and
that is why there are two holes in it.
These Kyle residents have a little trail down the hill.
Coal mine ruins at Kyle. There are also tipple foundations in someone's front yard at the bottom of the hill that the home owner mows grass around.
This was likely a boarding house at one time.
I don't think Kyle has many remaining residents. The blue
car seen here was actually driven by a fisherman who got out, gathered up his rod and tackle, and walked down to a fishing hole in
Elkhorn Creek. That stream was probably dead 30 years ago, but it must have been restored to the point where people are fishing in it again.
As you can see from this advertisement in the October 30, 1940 issue of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph,
Lyncburg Coal and Coke Co. wasted no time in liquidating their assests after they closed the coal mine in August 1940. The mine had produced coal for a few months
short of 50 years.
Sources:
Schust, Alex P. Billion Dollar Coalfield. Two Mule Publishing, 2010.
Schust, Alex. 10 April 2022 email.
WV state mining records
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