Emmett, WV was once a coal camp owned by Elk Creek Coal Company (a subsidiary of Guyan Eagle Coal Co.), but all that remains there today is this preparation plant that was owned by Island Creek Coal Co. (which purchased Guyan Eagle Coal Company's assets in 1959) to process coal for their No. 10 mine, Guyan Division. Later CONSOL purchased it, named it their Elk Creek facility, then idled it. It now sits quietly rusting away.
Some say that this building in Wilkinson, WV was the company store, while others claim it was not. Who knows?
Ruins of the coal mine, possibly machine shop, office, or bathhouse, at Lyburn, Lyburn Mines, Inc., and later Elkay Mining.
Earling, WV, built in 1913 by the Hutchinson Coal Co. and later operated by the West Virginia Coal & Coke Corp., was once a big coal camp, but has been reduced to just a few homes.
Last few homes left at Taplin, where the Cedar-Gas Coal Co. operated the mines.
Here's a picture of the remains of Pittston Coal Co.'s prep plant up on Buffalo Creek. This was the mine site where in 1972 the impoundment broke and caused a flood that destroyed
most of the coal camps on Buffalo Creek and killed over 100 people. It is very eerie up there, and the only sound I heard was the wrecking ball (up on the hill, out of site) tearing down these silos, while I took this photo and thought of those 100+ dead people.
This was the electric shop at Amherstdale, domain of the Guyan Eagle Coal Co. and, later, Island Creek Coal Co.
This is a memorial on Buffalo Creek for the people who died in the 40 foot wave that came down the hollow when Pittston's dam broke.
The tipple at Snap Creek looks to be closed down.
Incredibly, Island Creek Coal Company was still operating retail "company stores" like this as late as 1980. This one has been identified as being at Oceana, WV. I scanned it from an obscure little book called "Coal and People" by Shirley Young Campbell, which is a good introduction to the WV Coal Industry.
Abandoned coal camp houses at Monaville, WV. The Mona mine was opened in 1912 by Hutchinson Coal Co. superintendent J.J. Ross.
This is the preparation plant for Hampden Coal Co., an active operation near Gilbert, WV.
Dehue, WV was a coal mine/company town owned by the Youngstown Mines Corporation, a captive mine of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. The town still existed as late as the 1970s, when this photograph was taken. Unlike most coal camps the homes at Dehue were never sold
to private residents. Dingess-Rum Land Company owned the houses, and people were still renting them as late as 2000-2001, when the last people were evicted. Massey Energy's Bandmill Coal Co. has a large coal operation and slurry injection site here now, so draw your own conclusions. Ironically, Dehue was named for a man who operated a "band mill" in that area: Mr. D.E. Hewitt.
The picture is from a sad chapter about Black Lung in a fascinating book by Matthew Witt and Earl Dotter titled "In Our Blood." (Courtesy of www.earldotter.com.)
One of the structures built by Island Creek Coal Co. that has survived at Coal Mountain, WV. Many of the coal camp homes remain, but the company store has been razed. So has the tipple, but there is another smaller company operating a coal mine there as of now.
Homes built for officials of the Clean Eagle Coal Company in the coal camp of Mallory, WV.
Near the end of the CSX railroad that runs from Man to Gilbert is this small loadout. Pictured here is a small manned helper tractor that pushes the empty gondola cars up to the loading chute.
Detail of the spray nozzles at the same loadout near Gilbert.
Excavated behind Wal-Mart in Logan got into an old mine.