This is a mining camp along the banks of the Guyandotte River in western Wyoming County. Marianna Smokeless Coal Co. built the town, but the remnants of the mining complex that are there now were the Robinson-Phillips mine. It has also been alleged that Red Jacket Coal Co. ran the Marianna operations for a while.

The Marianna coal camp

A truck dump surrounded by conveyors

General view of the ruins standing where the prep plant used to be (hence the piers in the foreground)

The brown building on the right was probably a maintenance shop

Looking down on the complex from up in the truck dump

Detail of a gravity take-up on the conveyor

Steel stacking tube at the old stockpile area up on the hill

The Marianna tunnel was built by the Virginian Railway

Looking down the track with the ruins of an unknown structure on the right, possibly part of the old prep plant

The original prep plant at Marianna (Courtesy VT ImageBase, housed and operated by Digital Library and Archives, University Libraries; scanning by Digital Imaging, Learning Technologies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

Cathy S. writes, "I do know that one of the people who began his career in company stores was my uncle Sidney... He came to work at that store in Marianna after my mother...had left for a job in...Md. My uncle Sid...also told me that store did not use script. Instead, they issued silver dollars."

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