J.W. writes of the time he spent in Monongalia County, "I was born in Fayete County [PA]. My Father, Grandfather and a number of uncles worked in the mines during 1905 - 1940 in Fayette, Greene, and Washington Counties [Pennsylvania]. Later my family
moved to Monongalia County in West Virginia and I grew up in a coal mining town. In fact, I worked as a slate picker at the mine during my school vacation between my Junior and Senior years in high school. Where I worked we did not have a picking table. We stood on a narrow platform right beside the conveyor on which the coal was carried into the railroad hopper cars. We threw the slate across the conveyor to another platform that was about 8 to 10 feet wide. When the slate accumulated and there was no more room on this platform it was
then shoveled down to the ground about 12 feet below. There a front end loader picked it up and put it in a slate bucket that carried it up the hillside and emptied between two hills. Surprisingly, all this accumulated slate in a huge slate pile has been hauled away to some unknown place and the area it formerly occupied was all landscaped, including planting of new trees. I'm only guessing that the federal or state government paid for all of this.
The mine I worked at was owned by Eastern Gas & Fuel Associates and was located in Everettville, WV. This small town is located about 10 miles south of Morgantown, WV and about a mile west of the Monongahela River, along Indian Creek. Its located on state route 45 that runs from Morgantown to an intersection with U. S. Route 19 at Arnettsville. The town, minus the stores and schools, still stands and most of the houses are now privately owned. In fact, some of the owners of these houses have torn them down and erected brand new ones."
In another email about Everettsville, Jim writes, "My grandfather was the town
cop in Everttsville when the mine exploded ... I took my dad
back there the year before he died just to look around. He pointed out some
of the old places but most of them were gone like the school and his old house.
He was disappointed that so much of the town was gone ..
He had fond memories on Everttsville. After the
mine blew he and my grandfather had to ride on horse back to the portal where
there was a pipe that grandfather had to put a thermometer in and record the
temperature in the mine to help determine if the fire was dying out. When we were
there we found out that the mine is still on fire today.
My grandfather also worked for Baldwin Felts in the very early 1900s and was
shot twice. I know that he still had one of those bullets in him when he died
in 1949. Near as I can figure he quit them around 1911 after the last gun
shot. That's when he met my grandma. As the books tell and Grandma said the BF
agents were a bunch of thugs ...I'll share one more story with you. Dad said that
they had a doctor that traveled from town to town ... He usually stayed with my
dad's family and on one trip he had a crystal
radio with him. He had to put an antenna up to pick up the only station that they
could get which was KDKA in Pittsburgh, the first radio station in the
country. There was a pole in town that dad said was about two inches in diameter and
probably 20 feet or so high. dad was the only kid small enough but also strong
enough to shinny up the pole and set the antenna without the pole bending
over. The doctor gave my dad 50 cents, I think, to set the antenna. 50 cents was
a lot of money for a kid in Everttsville in those days.
The radio only had a set of headphones, no speaker. So that night they put
the headphones in a big soup bowl and everyone set around the table with their
ears cupped toward the soup bowl listening to KDKA."
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Four States, WV is a coal camp located on a hill in the back of an isolated hollow in southern Marion County. The company housing consists of two story red brick homes, and supposedly had indoor plumbing from the start. The coal preparation complex would have been located in the land at the bottom of the hill, but it and the related B&O rail spur have been demolished. Four States was constructed around 1910 by
Four States Coal and Coke Co. (a subsidiary of the Pittsburg Buffalo Company - yes, that's how they spelled it) to house the workers of their Annabelle Mine No.1. This later became Christopher Coal Company's No. 6 mine.
Mine motor at CONSOL's Humphrey Plant at Maidsville, WV, which was opened in 1956 by the Christopher Coal Company. This was one of the last coal mines in the nation to still use rail haulage to bring the coal out of the mine until it's closure in December 2002. (Thanks to Ray M. for the photo)
The sun goes down on the Humphrey Preparation Plant in December 2002 three days before it closed for good. The lights on the refuse conveyor and the plant have already been turned on for the evening. This was one of the last sand media plants in the nation. There were two Chance cones at Humphrey.
This photo, taken nearly a year later, shows the Humphrey coal processing plant still standing. A closer look at the picture reveals a white crane on the
ground beside the plant, gutting the plant of it's equipment to use elsewhere.
But a little over a year later a coal train passes a mostly demolished Humphry coal processing facility.
A turnover car dumper like this one at the Humphrey No. 7 mine is rare because most coal mines now use underground conveyors instead of rail haulage.
Coal camp houses possibly built by the Brady-Warner Coal Corp. or Osage Coal Co. at Osage, WV. These houses would have later been owned by the Christopher Coal Co. to house the workers of their No. 3 mine.
The Deckers Creek Coal & Coke Co. built these coke ovens at Richard, WV, on the outskirts of Morgantown, in 1903. Unfortunately, they have been demolished since this photo was taken in 1976. (Public domain photo by William Barrett, HAER (Historical American Engineering Record)
These company-built houses at Richard, WV still exist, however. The Richard mine closed in 1951.
I was surprised to find these beehive coke ovens along the Monongahela River, near the Opekiska Lock. They are on the opposite side of the river from Everttville, and there are at least 30 of them.
Federal No. 3 mine at Everttsville, WV gets a new mine motor. (Courtesy Coal and Coke Heritage Center, Penn State Fayette)
Preparation plant and skip hoist at
Eastern Associated Coal Company's Federal No. 2 mine in Monongalia County.
Large coal camp homes built by the Consolidation Coal Co. at Owings, WV in Harrison County.
There are a few remaining company houses at Jere, WV. They may have been constructed by the Soper-Mitchell Coal Co., which closed the Jere mine down in the 1920s. It was reopened by the
Scott Run Fuel Corp. in 1929, closed in 1930, and opened again by the Sunrise Coal Co. in 1932. In 1936 it was idled permanently.
Abandoned coal tipple along Elk Creek in Barbour County. This tipple has been demolished since this picture was taken.
Old fashioned wooden railroad trestle in southern Harrison County
Rosemont coal camp in Taylor County.
The now demolished coke ovens at Cascade, Preston County, West Virginia, as they looked in November 1973. (Courtesy of HABS/HAER)
The Cascade coal camp has also been demolished since this photograph was taken in November 1973. (Courtesy of HABS/HAER)
Another 1973 view of the Cascade coal camp. (Courtesy of HABS/HAER)
Coal camp and remaining mine building on the edge of Masontown, WV.