McALPIN, WV

This was a sizeable coal town, built by the McAlpin Coal Co. in 1909-1910, replete with a theater and YMCA, the first one in the area. The founder of the McAlpin Coal Company was John Laing, who was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1865. Laing named the town and mine McAlpin after his mother's maiden name. Six miners died when the mine blew up in 1928. One of the last company stores to close was in McAlpin. When Westmoreland Coal Co. owned the mine, they operated the store into the 1970s. The mining was originally in the Beckley seam and later a slope mine in the Pocahontas No. 4 seam which eventually broke through to the Westmoreland East Gulf mine.

One of the last company built houses remaining in McAlpin, and the only one in this row. (January 2002 photo)

Another part of the vanishing McAlpin coal camp. (January 2004 photo)

Possible machine shop or pump house. (May 2000 photo)

These steps are all that's left of Mark Twain High School in McAlpin. There is a historical marker here today attesting to the fact that Senator Robert Byrd was valedictorian here in 1934. The school burned in the 1970s. (November 1997 photo)

McAlpin, once a town with over 150 homes, is reverting to a wilderness. (November 1997 photo)

Ruins of the McAlpin coal preparation complex. (January 2004 photo)

Remains of the aerial tramway on the mountain above McAlpin. (September 2007 photo courtesy Jeff Davis)

A lonely shop building at McAlpin. (January 2004 photo)

April writes, "Here are some pictures taken in 1988 and 1992. They are of my great grandmothers house and of what was left of the mines. At that time the opening of the mines was left open and kids and teens used to go in there to 'goof-off' or people would drive down from whereever to go inside and get coal to heat their houses. My grandmother always worried about that. She was the last one left in that row of company houses. Those houses were actually built to house four families." April's photos are as follows:

Her great grandmother's coal camp house

Tipple ruins and now removed C&O (CSX) railroad

More ruins of the McAlpin mine

Westmoreland Coal Company signs

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