Ruins of the U.S. Coal and Coke Co. coal preparation facility in Lynch, KY. U.S. Coal and Coke was a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. All of the coal mined in Lynch by that company went to U.S. Steel's coke ovens in Gary, Indiana, a city on the edge of the Chicago metro area. On the left of this photo is what is probably the blending bins, in the center is what's left of the prep plant, and on the right was the power house and silo.
When the Lynch preparation plant was built in 1920 a steel structure sit on top of
the concrete section. Though the preparation of U.S. Steel's coal was transferred to a newer plant at Corbin in 1955, the Lynch
plant continued to serve as a loadout until 1991.
Lamp house No. 1 and one of the portals for Mine No. 30 at Lynch. The No. 31 portal and Lamp house No. 2
are on the other side of the hollow, and are now tourist attractions.
This was the bathhouse at Lynch. Interestingly enough, it was originally a racially segregated bathhouse. At the far end
of the bathhouse was a section housing the engineering and payroll departments of the coal company.
The former U.S. Coal and Coke Company store in Lynch. Boarded up windows are probably evidence that bored, misguided kids have nothing better
to do than break windows. The high school and grade schools, also made out cut stone, have suffered a simalar fate.
Still many nice homes built by U.S. Coal and Coke remain in Lynch to this day. Lynch was allegedly the largest coal company town in the nation. Whether or not that
was true (the combined Gary, WV camps seem larger to me), it certainly was a major company town. At it's peak 10,000 people called Lynch home. Now there are only about 900 residents in Lynch. So it has lost
90% of its population.
Large company-built homes for the miners in Lynch, KY
These two story duplex homes in West Lynch are simalar to the ones in U.S. Steel mining towns in Pennsylvania and McDowell County, West Virginia.
The sign on a former school building in West Lynch recalls a strange era in American history.
The former hospital and Resurrection Catholic Church in Lynch.
Even the post office in Lynch was created from cut stone, like the bathhouse, company stores, and schools. I think the company believed that
they would be here for 200 years. Once there was a bank in the post office building, but it now seems that most commercial businesses have left Lynch.
Downtown Benham, KY, a coal company town built by Wisconsin Steel Company, a subsidiary of International Harvester.
The former company store in Benham, KY is now the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum.
Some of the coal camp houses in Benham. Wisconsin Steel constructed the town between 1911 and 1919.
Smaller company built houses in Benham. The Benham mines were still owned and operated by International Harvester in the 1970s, but by the time the mines
closed in the 1980s, they were run by Arch of Kentucky.
In 1947 Stonega Coal and Coke opened the Glenbrook mine in Harlan County, with the workers living in Virginia in newly constructed houses built by the coal company. In 2007 the Glenbrook prep plant
is still in existence. Though it is idle, the guards at the guard shack won't let anyone get by them, forcing photographers to take a picture of the 60 year old coal plant through the trees on the mountain above.