Newhall is a coal camp that was opened in 1915 by New River & Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company, which was associated with the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. Their No. 6, 7, and 8 mines were located at Newhall. The No. 6 tipple burned down in 1935, and the company closed that mine. Jean Pocahontas Coal Co. was allowed to reopen No. 6 mine in the 1940s, until New River & Pocahontas took operations over again in 1949 until 1958. Later, Consolidaton Coal Co. mined the No. 6 coal reserves from 1965 to 1973 as their Newhall Mine. Another mine, No. 7, produced Pocahontas No. 3 coal from 1916 to 1933. Mine No. 8 operated from 1917 to 1931, and featured its own company store. Also, in the 1950s Brewster Coal Co. was allowed to strip and auger the outcropping of parts of these mines.
New River & Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company also operated other McDowell County coal mines at Berwind, Canebrake, Havaco, and Capels; as well as the large Kaymoor, Minden, and Layland mines in the New River Coalfield.
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Newhall, W.Va. post office.
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Coal camp houses along the railroad and rail siding that was originally for the No. 6 mine. Only one house still sports its original chimney.
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Former company houses in various stages of modernization.
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An industrial building of unknown origin.
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However, the purpose of this old structure is know. While it looks like an old "poweder house" or dynamite storage shed, according to its owner, it was a pump house that received water from tanks on the mountain above and distributed the water to the surrounding coal company houses.
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This bridge crosses over the entire Jacobs Fork hollow, and once carried mine locomotives from mine portals.
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A simple loadout, probably for direct ship (run-of-mine) coal, was appended onto the bridge.
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Rivited construction on the mine locomotive bridge shows its age.
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Former company houses that have been updated with various siding, roofing, and foundation materials. The chimneys have been removed from them as well.
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The lower end of Newhall coal camp.
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When walking old railroads through the coal fields, one gets not only a sense of coal mining history, but also of the industrial history of America as a nation. Some of the railroad base plates were made by the legendary integrated steel producers, like this one made in 1932 by Carnegie Steel.
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This plate was made by Republic Steel of Ohio.
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Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. manufactured this plate in 1939.
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And here's one made by Wheeling Steel Corp. in 1933.
Sources:
Schust, Alex P. Billion Dollar Coalfield: West Virginias McDowell County and the Industrialization of America. Two Mule Pub., 2010.
