DUNBAR, VA

Stonega Coal & Coke Co. opened the Dunbar coal mines in 1919. This company had been mining the Imboden coal seam from the other side of the mountain for a couple of decades. They decided they needed some higher coal seams (Marker and Taggart) mined before they could continue in the Imboden seam. So they opened up these higher coal seams from the Dunbar side of the mountain. The Dunbar mines closed in 1952.

2022 image by Bobby Orr About the only structure remaining from the Dunbar mine is this bath house. Note the Westmoreland Coal/Stonega Coal & Coke triangle logos.

2017 image by author Remaining Dunbar coal camp houses.

2017 image by author By 1922 most new coal company towns were built in the style of "model" coal towns and utilized single family dwellings. But the lack of space in this narrow hollow caused Stonega Coal & Coke to use Pennsylvania-style two family houses here.

2017 image by author Red arrow points to a remaining coal house. A coal house was a small structure by the road where the coal company truck would deliver house coal.

2017 image by author A better view of another coal house. There were two chute openings in each coal house for two different families. In this example someone has boarded up their chute opening and added a small extension to make a kind of storage shed.

2017 image by author Proximity of the Dunbar company houses to the railroad track. The tracks were formerly an Interstate Railroad spur to Pardee. Pardee is gone with the wind, but there is still some kind of coal loadout there, though it may be idle now.

2017 image by author Probably the superintendent's house.

2017 image by author The center of Dunbar. The company store and theatre are gone, but the church remains.

2017 image by author A closer view of the Methodist church in Dunbar.

2017 image by author Not much remains of the Dunbar mines. However here is a modern coal mine near Dunbar.

Sources:

Wolfe, Ed. Coal Camps, Tipples and Mines. Walsworth Publishing Co., 2005.