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MISC. LOGAN COALFIELD LOCATIONS
This street in Logan, W.Va. is actually a remnant of H.T. Wilson Coal Company's mining camp. This was one of the first mines to open in the
Logan Coalfield in 1907. I'm kind of surprised that these old company houses have lasted, because they aren't exactly of great quality. Later, under the threat of union organization, coal camp houses became larger and
more accomodating than these early examples.
Good 1970s view of a burning slate dump next to coal camp houses at Hutchinson, WV. The Hutchinson Coal Co. town has since been obliterated by the Elkay/Massey/Alpha Bandmill/Aracoma coal mining complex.
Emmett, WV was once a coal camp owned by Elk Creek Coal Company, a subsidiary of Guyan Eagle Coal Co. The coal company houses were demolished and this preparation plant was constructed by Island Creek Coal Co. (which purchased Guyan Eagle Coal Company's assets in 1959) to process coal for their No. 10 mine, Guyan Division. Later Consol purchased it, named it their Elk Creek facility, then idled it. It was quietly rusting
away when I took this photo, but has since been demolished. The concrete coal silos may remain, however.
This building in Wilkinson, WV was the Monitor Coal & Coke Company store and offices. It was later used as a repair shop. Rick
writes, "I grew up in Yuma Camp just around the corner from this building.
As you can seen this building was a machinery repair shop. Note the boarded up section that was formerly a large garage door with a rail for overhead crane.
The house just next door was a very nice stone house - and as I remember they had the nicest Halloween treats - home-made popcorn balls no less.
Just around the corner to the right was J.T.Fish junk yard. I played on the stacks of mine cars and old school buses in that yard as a grade school child."
Ruins of the coal mine, possibly lamp house, office, or bathhouse, at Lyburn - Lyburn Mines, Inc., and later Elkay Mining.
Earling, WV, built in 1913 by the Hutchinson Coal Co. and later operated by the West Virginia Coal & Coke Corp., was once a big coal camp, but has been
reduced to just a few homes.
West Virginia Coal & Coke mined coal at Earling from 1925 until 1951.
The tipple that used to be at Earling.
Newly constructed coal camp of Logan Coal Company along Dingess Run near Ethel.
Last few homes left at Taplin, WV. Coal companies that mined at Taplin included Cedar Gas Coal Co., H&B Coal Co., and Elkay Mining.
Tipple and incline at the Fort Branch Mine.
This residential area between Logan and Holden illustrates how people are crowded in the narrow valley bottoms between very steep
hillsides in this part of Appalachia.
The tipple at Snap Creek was closed on this day.
Incredibly, Island Creek Coal Company was still operating retail "company stores" like this as late as 1980. This one was probably in western Wyoming County.
Coty sent in this picture of an industrial structure on Middle Fork of Island Creek. I can't help but think it might have been part
of West Virginia Coal & Coke's Micco or Omar No. 4 coal mines.
Logan Chilton Coal Co. operated the Rita coal mine in Logan County from 1929 until 1950. As late as 2012 people were still renting these coal camp houses at Rita from the land company - DB Land LLC - that inherited them from a coal
company. In September 2012, DB sent Rita residents notice that they would have to vacate their old coal company homes, presumably because they would be demolished (for a new mine perhaps?). The inhabitants of the houses were
upset, and did not want to leave, so the land company worked with them to survey lots around the houses and sell them to the Rita residents. One Rita local was quoted in the media as saying "Every memory I got and these other
people is the same way, their whole lives played out here. Just to see it come in and doze it under. And to see what's happened, ain't short of a miracle." So this was a much happier outcome that what happened a few years
prior at nearby Dehue.
This is the preparation plant for Hampden Coal Co., an active operation near Gilbert, WV.
Dehue, WV was a coal mine/company town owned by the Youngstown Mines Corporation, a captive mine of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. The town still existed as late as the 1970s, when this photograph was taken. Unlike most coal camps the homes at Dehue were never sold
to private residents. Dingess-Rum Land Company owned the houses, and people were still renting them as late as 2000-2001, when the last people were evicted. Massey Energy's Bandmill / Aracoma coal mining operation was expanding
there at the time, and Dehue was probably in the way.
Ironically, Dehue was named for a man who operated a "band mill" in that area: Mr. D.E. Hewitt.
The picture is from a sad chapter about Black Lung in a fascinating book by Matthew Witt and Earl Dotter titled "In Our Blood."
Dehue company houses were still being maintained by the coal company into the 1970's.
Bandmill prep plant on Rum Creek, parts of which may date
back to Elkay Mining's operations there from the 1970's.
Homes built for officials of the Clean Eagle Coal Company in the coal camp of Mallory, WV. A roof fall in the No. 3 mine caused the death
of five miners on May 22, 1920.
Near the end of the CSX railroad that runs from Man to Gilbert is this small loadout. Pictured here is a small manned helper
locomotive that pushes the empty gondola cars up to the loading chute.
Detail of the dust control spray nozzles at the same loadout near Gilbert.
Excavation behind Wal-Mart in Logan got into an old mine.
Crystal Block Coal & Coke Co. tipple that used to be at Crystal Block, WV - the last
coal camp going up Island Creek.
Remains of Wood Coal Co. Mine No. 4 near Freeze Fork.
Coal camp at Upper Whitman, W.Va. (probably Island Creek No. 20).
Remaining coal camp houses from Island Creek No. 14.
Island Creek Coal Company's Holden No. 3 coal camp was probably built in 1916 - the year the mine opened.
This old cut stone building located between Holden No. 3 and No. 14 has been identified as a power station, water house, and poweder house.
Later Boy Scout meetings were held here.
Memorial to the Holden No. 22 mine disaster on March 8, 1960. 18 miners died from asphixiation
and carbon monoxide poisoning from an underground fire. Holden No. 22 mine was at Pine Creek, W.Va.
Verdunville coal camp - where the miners of Holden No. 15 and 16 mines lived.
2016 image by author
Image by Jack Corn, courtesty The U.S. National Archives
Mar. 2005 image by author
Feb. 2002 image by author
Feb. 2002 image by author
Feb. 2002 image by author
Feb. 2002 image by author
April 1991 WV SHPO image
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway image via Google Books
Feb. 2002 image by author
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway image via Google Books
Sep. 2001 image by author
Nov. 2001 image by author
Image from "Coal and People" by Shirley Young Campbell
2012 image courtesy of Coty Sheppard
2012 image by others
Image courtesy of Ken B.
1970's image courtesy of www.earldotter.com, with permission
1974 image by Jack Corn, courtesty The U.S. National Archives
Image by others
Nov. 2006 image by author
Nov. 2006 image by author
Nov. 2006 image by author
Nov. 2007 image by author
Circa 1922 image from the "Keystone Coal Catalog" via Google Books
Nov. 2013 WV SHPO image
WV SHPO image
Dec. 2017 image by author
Dec. 2017 image by author
Dec. 2017 image by author
Dec. 2017 image by author
Dec. 2017 image by author