KEOKEE, VIRGINIA

Jan. 2007 image by author Former Keokee Coal and Coke Company store in Keokee, Lee County, VA. The coal company closed the store in 1930, three years after the last coal mine at Keokee closed. The beehive coke oven plant, probably the only one ever in Lee County, probably also closed at that time. And then most of the Keokee coal camp was demolished.

But what is interesting about the town is the fact that Stonega Coke and Coal rebuilt the Keokee coal camp in 1947 to house the families of the miners of their newly opened Glenbrook mine. Though Stonega sold most of the homes, as opposed to renting them, they probably represent one of the last times that an Appalachian coal company constructed housing for its workers.

Image from Ed Wolfe's book Coal Camps, Tipples, and Mines Photo of homes being constructed by Stonega Coal and Coke Company in Keokee in 1946.

SOME OF THE LAST COAL COMPANY TOWNS TO BE BUILT IN APPALACHIA

  • 1934 - Wyoming, WV
  • 1937 - Keen Mountain, VA
  • 1938 - Kopperston, WV
  • 1940 - Lynco, WV
  • 1940 - Burson/Braden, PA
  • 1940 - Marianna, WV
  • 1942 - Republic, KY
  • 1946 - Raven-Peerless Mine, Nicholas County, WV
  • 1945 - Wharton, WV
  • 1947 - Munson, WV
  • 1947 - Keokee, VA (reconstructed)
  • 1947 - Barrett & Clinton, WV
  • 1952 - New Camp (Pound), VA (only 10 houses for management)
  • 1968 - Hunting Hills, WV (homes sold, not rented, to miners' families)
  • 1981 - Buchanshire, VA (Evidently Island Creek Coal never actually constructed this town that they planned to build.)
Image courtesy of Everett Young From a late 1940's brochure about the Glenbrook Mine.
From a Keystone Mining Catalog via Google Books The original Keokee coal camp before it was torn down and rebuilt.
Virginia Coal Heritage Trail image This structure was originally the power house for the coal mine at Keokee. Apparently it was later converted into a theater.