WINDING GULF, W.VA.
Winding Gulf Collieries, owned by coal baron Justis Collins, built this coal camp in 1910. Mining was originally in the Beckley seam. Local historian Jim Wood has determined
that 56 miners died in the mines at Winding Gulf over the years. The mines were serviced by the Virginian Railroad. Winding Gulf, which was the third largest town in Raleigh County in the 1920s, consisted of
Winding Gulf Collaries No. 1 camp, No. 2 camp, Lynwinn camp (No. 3), Epperly Hill, and Farley Hill (not company owned). No. 1 and 2 mines closed in the late
1940s.
Collins school was built in the Epperly Hill section of the camp and it closed in 1963. Their mascot was the Pirates.
In the 21st Century, a few people still live on Epperly Hill, Farley Hill, and Lynwinn Road (sans original housing). No. 1 and No. 2 camps basically withered away to nothing during the second half of the 20th Century.
I first went to Winding Gulf in 1987. In 1989, I went down there with my uncle, who grew up there, and he took a few photographs. These are the earliest photographs of me exploring a coal camp.
At one time there was an incline from the bottom at Winding Gulf No. 1 up to
Epperly Hill. This wasn't for coal or passengers, but for the freight in building the houses, and possibly later just to take supplies up the mountain that may have came in on the train. This incline had been removed by the 1930s.
Loren writes, "I grew up on Epperly Hill in the early 70's. My mother was born in the company store on Epperly Hill just bellow the old
Collins School. My father told me a story about a coal mine supervisor he worked with at Riffe Branch by the name Robert Hungate... He wore a size 15 or better shoe. Talking to my mom about your web site has brought up numerous stories about coal mines in the sixties and seventies, the old baseball diamond and other thing I had not thought about for years."
Mr. Amato continued, "When I went to work in the Winding Gulf Collieries mine, in the town of Winding Gulf, I earned 62 CENTS a ton. That song '16 Tons' was about right. The period was June 1939 to August 40. From this money I paid for my own tools, head lamp rent, dynamite, doctor fee, and hospital. We bought coal from the coal company, for our home fires, at $2.00 a ton ... If we worked in water we were paid 72 cents a ton. That was really bad conditions. The wet coal was very heavy on the shovel, and you could not load very much. The temperature in the mine was a constant 60--65 degrees. When you were wet it was really miserable. I was fortunate in that I only worked in water for about 15 days." Kelly also explained to me the differnce between the weighman and the check weighman. Before ALL of the coal miners were allowed to join the UMWA, the coal companies employed a weighman at the head house to weigh the coal cars that the miners loaded. The miners were paid by the ton, not by the hour. But if there was a little bit of "slate" (also called "bone") in the car, the miner wouldn't get paid for it. Uncle Kelly said that many times his father "would load five cars but get paid for two." To make matters worse, some coal companies would require the miner to heap the coal up in the car until it neared 3000 pounds rather than the standard 2000 pound short ton. So the weighman, on behalf of the coal company, often took advantage of the coal miners. After the miners won the right to organize into the UMWA, a checkweighman, employed by the union, made sure that the weighman, employed by the company, properly weighed the coal. Another advantage of union membership was that 300 lbs of slate per car was allowed before a miner was denied pay for it. My uncle also remembered the large shale parting running through the middle of the seam in the Beckley seam. He remembered another mine at Winding Gulf as being in the "Bluefield" seam, probably the local name for Pocahontas 3 or 4 seam.
Another correspondence reads, "Hello! My name is Patricia Meadows. I was born in 1950 and in 1954 or 1955, my sister and her husband, (Carl L. Keyser and Shirley Meadows Keyser) as well as my older sister's husband and family (Walter Smedley and Geneva Smedley) resided at Epperly Hill, and so did my brother-in-law's family (Willie Adams). I remember one Sunday me and my nephews climbed a ladder and got on top of the Collins school house, and we also got the first typhoid shots in Winding Gulf at the doctors office...we walked a long way through the woods to get to the doctors' office too. My sister and I used to buy things at the camp store and I remember there was this huge water tower up the road from the store. At that time, there may have been about three churches on Epperly Hill and what seemed like a lot of really huge houses (but I was only a small child at that time). I thought the house the Adams' lived in had an underground railroad accessable from their dining room through a door which looked like a closet, this house seemed to be very, very old, predating 1910. Their house was the first one (big white house) directly across the road from the Collins school, the Adams' house was the first house you would see on the left, upon topping the hill. They are all dead now, as are my sisters and their husbands. I spent a lot of summers and holidays with my sisters and nephews there until the mine work seemed to have slowed down and the brothers-in-laws moved on and they all moved out of the houses. I also remember always passing the Farley Hill Church and when it snowed, it was really trecherous making the left turn to go to Epperly Hill. We lived in Lego, WV at the time. My daddy was a foreman and worked in the mines near Axion Hollow. I remember buying things in the company store and paying for it in scrip! I was actually born in a doctors office in Killarney, WV. I remember eating squirell, rabbit and pheasant, a lot of pinto beans and corn bread and learning to shoot at 5. I still eat beans and corn bread sometimes, and I can still shoot if I have to!!! LOL...I am proud to be a coal miner's daughter! In the words of Loretta Lynn."
October 1997 image by author
Looking out over the area was the African-American section of Winding Gulf No. 1.
October 1997 image by author
This was the last company house in the bottom of Winding Gulf No. 1 camp.
October 1997 image by author
African-American church on the side of Epperly Hill
October 2007 image by author
Plaque on the side of the church.
October 1997 image by author
Typical foreman's house on Epperly Hill. The porch enclosure is not original. There are still three of these homes on Epperly Hill, and on one of them a red brick foundation is visable, whereas the miners' homes in the bottom of the hollow were built on posts. In addition to
these large homes there are several other houses on Epperly Hill that appear to date from the 1910s-20s. They are not of the same shape and style, and may have been built by the coal company to house a company doctor, school teachers, store managers, and other officials. One man told me that his family lived on Epperly Hill. His father was a carpenter. I
asked him if a carpenter worked underground, and he said that a carpenter built and repaired structures on the surface, like the houses and tipple. 
Image source lost
I found this photo, with other old Winding Gulf photos, on a flash drive. I don't remember who sent them to me, but it appears to be a row of mine formens' houses
on Epperly Hill.
May 2000 image by author
Steps from No. 1 camp to Collins School that the children used. Many people have happy childhood memories at Winding Gulf. One gentleman recalled waiting until the mines closed on Sundays, and he and his buddies pushing the underground coal cars up the hollow and riding them down. He also remembered
playing in the sand house, which was a shed where the coal company stored sand that it used in various ways.
October 1997 image by author
Ruins of "shotgun" house that my great grandfather, Emanuel Amato, lived in at Winding Gulf.
October 1997 image by author
Detail of "shotgun" house ruins.
May 2000 image by author
A burned out fanhouse between No. 1 and No. 2 camps. This is now gone and has been replaced with a concrete cap over the shaft.
October 1997 image by author
Foundations for railroad trestle at No. 2 camp.
December 2004 image by author
This portal remains from the No. 2 mine. The inscription above the entry reads "1922."
December 2004 photo
Only occasional foundations like these are left from the No. 2 camp. I have been told that the No. 2 mine was a shaft mine, rare in the Winding Gulf Coalfield.
However, Winding Gulf No. 1 mine was a slope portal.
Photo from "A Tribute to the Coal Miner," used with permission
Here is the big wooden tipple that was at Winding Gulf. The powerhouse in the lower left was still
standing when I first went down there. The area was reclaimed around 1990, however.
March 2010 image by author
Tipple foundations are revealed in an eroded gulley.
December 2004 image by author
Past No. 1 and No. 2 camps the road goes up to Farley Hill, a residential section not developed by the coal company, but
considered to be part of Winding Gulf anyway. The road ends at Farley Hill Baptist Church and cemetery, pictured here on a cold and quiet Sunday afternoon.
October 1997 image by author
Houses on Farley Hill.
October 2022 image by author
Possible management level house on Epperly Hill. This picture was taken almost exactly 25 years after the photos at the top of this page. Call it my 25th anniversary
picture. As you can see, my photography did not improve that much in a quarter of a century.
Calogero "Kelly" Amato, who was born at Winding Gulf in 1921, also tells the story: "This happened In Winding Gulf # 1 Mine. First I must tell you that in the coal camps the lights went out about 8:30 or 9:00. Mining coal was/is a backbreaking job. The miners had to get their rest in order to function properly. But a smart aleck 18 year old boy knew better. I went out with some friends, the night before, I can't tell you where now , 65 years later. But I came home at 3 AM. My dad called me at 5 AM. He did some fussing and I got up and got ready to go to work. I felt like I had been dragged through a knot hole. By the time we caught the mantrip I was feeling very bad. When we got to the work place I told Papa that I would help him load the first car and then I was going home. After loading the first car I decided help him 'shoot' the face of the coal. I drilled the hole for the dynamite (we called it powder from the days that Black Powder was used). The drill was seven feet long and about 2 inches in diameter. It was like an auger and was fitted with a breast plate which you put against you chest and turned the cranks. The day before the engineer, Mr. Jack White, told me that there was 15 feet of coal before we would break through into a worked-out area. I then went around the bend and got four and a half sticks of dynamite, a blasting detonator and the blasting cable. I gave Papa the sticks and blasting detonator and then I made mistake #1, I took the cable and gave my dad one end and then started with the other end around the bend .THAT IS AGAINST THE RULES. You must leave the face of the coal TOGETHER when shooting. Mistake #2: When I got to the end of the cable I reached for the battery and then stuck the wires into it. I don't know where my mind was at that instant, but when I heard the blast I realized what I had done. I have never been as frightened as I was then. I have come close to being killed many times in the Navy and several times I thought I was going to die . I ran to the face of the coal . There was my dad about 10 feet from the face covered with coal to his chest. I don't know what I said, but my dad said, 'Are you trying to kill me?' He really meant it. He was not hurt at all. The GOOD LORD was looking out for both of us that day. I don't know how I would have lived if I had killed Papa. The GOOD LORD works in mysterious ways. It turned out that Mr. White had made a mistake and it was only 8 feet to the worked out area. the entire blast had gone out the other side. If I had known that it was only 8 feet I would have drilled a four foot hole and used about two sticks of dynamite. That would have been enough to kill my father as the blast would have come towards him. My father lived to the age of 90 years. Every time I went home he would say, 'Do you remember when you almost killed me?'" Later Kelly remembered that his dad stored his dynamite right under the bed in their coal camp house. Later Winding Gulf Collaries constructed a dynamite shack in a remote hollow and stored explosives there. His dad, and all coal miners at the time, paid for the dynamite, and Kelly remembered him buying a 25 lb. can of carbide for his lamp. Unlike other coal camps, however, Winding Gulf provided free blacksmith services to the miners, and Kelly remembered that the blacksmith didn't grind but pounded picks sharp.