CAPERTON

This mining town was built in 1881 by George Caperton alongside the main line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Caperton was later president of The New River Company. The orgininal name of the town was "Mincar." Around 1900 Queen Victoria allegedly owned the Caperton operation to provide coal for England (under the name Victoria Coal & Coke). Sewell Colliery Co. owned the mine in the teens and they called the mine "Sugar Camp." However, the mine closed in the '40s or '50s. The school for white children was closed in 1952, the post office in 1954, and the town was abandoned shortly thereafter.

The tipple and part of the coal camp at Caperton in the 1870s (West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries)

Caperton coke ovens

Detail of the coke ovens

The cut stone foundations for the tipple are terraced into the mountainside

A monitor car is still dangling from the cable across the tipple ruins

The monitor car hoist at the top of the incline

The monitor car hoist looking down the incline

The ruins of the Caperton mansion. It stood until a tree fell across it in 1984. It was located at the end of the swinging bridge that connected Caperton and Elverton.

This tenacious structure was possibly a boarding house. A 1987 site inventory for the Park Service said this structure was "largely erect 40' high but nearly rotted to the point of collapse made of wood and metal very dangerous." Fortunately, the NPS has not destroyed the historic structure.

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