The skeletal remains of a wooden tipple north of Iaeger in McDowell County.
Litwar coal camp - Little War Eagle Coal Co.
A freight train passes gondola cars just loaded at the Litwar prep plant, barely visable in the background.
An old auger sitting in the woods near Panther, WV. (Photo courtesy of Sidney Burke)
Thanks to David Price for contributing this post card of a "Mining Camp near Williamson, WV"
The often-photographed rail yard in Williamson, built by the N&W and maintained by N-S.
Though coal seems to be the main freight that rolls through the Williamson rail yard, other items, such as the tank cars, are present as well. In the background is a roundhouse of sorts with the obligatory turntable.
Another photo from David Price, which he describes, "[This] house is near Lenore, WV. I pretty sure it was built by the Himler Coal Co. along the original Twelvepole Extension of the N&W. It was the first (?) employee owned coal company. Martin Himler was a Hungarian immigrant who contacted other Hungarians to participate in establishing an all Hungarian community."
A coal camp named Red Jacket, built by the Red Jacket Consolidated Coal & Coke Co. and later owned by the mighty Island Creek Coal Co.
These homes in Red Jacket were probably constructed for officials of the company, and are simalar to the ones the company built in Wyoming, WV.
A N-S (even though it says Conrail) coal train rolls through Matewan
Dowtown Matewan, famous for the shootout between the miners' advocate, Sherriff Sid Hatfield, and the Baldwin-Felts mine detectives hired by a nearby coal company to evict striking miners from company housing. In
the background it a truck for the "Hatfield and McCoy Furniture" store. The decendents of the feuding families are probably still in the area.
These brass plugs in the side of a store in downtown Matewan fill in bullet holes left from the "Battle of Matewan."
It was the Stone Mountain Coal Corp. that evicted the coal miners from the coal camp houses at Matewan. Here are a few of those very homes that have survived.
Contemporary scene at Rawl Sales and Processing, which appears to be a relatively tidy operation
Another great picture by David, this time the Howard Collaries company store in Chattaroy, WV.
A coal company-built house at Chattaroy that is still occupied.
David contributes these photos of Cinderella, WV. Here is the Sycamore Coal Company store that is still located there.
The posts on this old sign frame at Cinderella are made out of coal. That is the superintendent's house behind it.
This wooden water tank was part of the Cinderella mining operation.
This is the last coal camp house left at Cinderella. The super's house and company store are in the background, and the remains of the rail spur are visable, too. Thanks David for these great photos.
Mary writes, "...my Dad was the bookeeper for Sycamore Coal Company in the 1940's. We lived in Huntington where he was the City Auditor for a while, and did bookeeping for small companies on our kitchen table at night... Then he worked for Mr. Hamill who was affiliated with Sycamore Coal Co. The year I was in the fourth grade, we lived at Cinderella where my Dad kept books and also audited other coal camp books all the way into Virginia. Mr. Hamill gave us his home to use while we were there. I have good memories playing in the woods with children from the 'camp', and running with my cocker spaniel at my heels. None of the children there had ever seen 'sech a dawg'. They loved his floppy ears and big feet. When I pulled up the Williamson Field page, I really went back in time. My grandfather, William Averill Wilson, brought his wife and children to WV from Pittsburgh to make his fortune in the coal fields. He did very well, and worked for Koppers Coal Co. out of PA for over 40 years. My dad worked for him, and met my mother after moving from Barnesville, OH to make his fortune in the coal fields. My mother often told of the Hatfield and McCoy feuds, and how her mother had met 'Devil Anse Hatfield'. Apparently he was a forbidding looking man. Mother lived in Matewan, Thacker, and Red Jacket among other places... When I found the photos taken at Cinderella, I was amazed to see the white house on the hill behind the coal signposts. That is the house where we lived while there. There were three houses on the hill with the mining engineer on one side, and a young man with his family on the other side who worked in the office with Dad. The house looks dilapidated now, but had a lovely front porch, and a stream going through the side yard that was concreted to channel the mountain run-off in the spring. It had a little curved bridge over the stream with a place for picnics hollowed out of the hill with stone benches and floor. Behind the house sat a play house with real up and down windows and a door with a lock. I used it for a doll house, and one day left the door open only to find a cow wedged into the little house that afternoon. When I saw the company store, that really brought back memories. My dad's offices were upstairs, and on the other side of the building there was a post office with PO boxes. When I was sent for the mail, old men used to spit 'tobaccy juice' at my bare feet. It was an adventure! I played with a little girl named S. McCoy, and another girl named C. Vance. I cannot help but wonder whatever happened to them. They loved coming to my house to play with my toys and dolls. I well remember Horace T. who ran the company store, and let me get fudgecicles for my friends. (My dad paid for them later.) There was also a small medical clinic on the other side of the store toward the coal tipple. I will never forget the doctor's name: Dr. Getwell. One time I tried to jump the railroad ties and had gravel imbedded in my knees. Dr. Getwell dug out the gravel and gave me a red lollipop after the horrible burning disenfectant he poured on my knees. We continued to spend summers at the house on the hill until they decided to move the offices to Huntington. Finally, my dad moved into a room at Horace T.'s house until the offices could be moved. He was working late one night, went to Horace's house to help his daughter with her math homework, and had a heart attack and died. He drove from Huntington all winter to Cinderella, and our dream was to have the offices in Huntington. It was such a sad year that we lost him, and I was 13. I loved Cinderella, and it is sad to see it in such a state as it is now. On the other hand, it was inevitable that miners would one day live in real towns with real stores, and go to the mines as they go to Ford plants here in Northern Ohio... I now live on the shores of Lake Erie in Northern Ohio, and love it here too. The memories of long ago are sweet from West Virginia, and I do miss the hills."
The "new" Cinderella tipple as it looked in 1960.(from the Norfolk Southern archives)
Delbarton Mining Company's preparation plant can process up to 600 tons per hour of Lower Cedar Grove coal.
Rare red brick coal camp houses at Ragland, WV. The operator was Ragland Coal Co. There are also wood frame company houses at Ragland. The mine facilities are mostly gone. Chafin elementary school is in total ruins. And a large mountaintop removal mine towers over the whole area.
David writes, "I'm in the Williamson field. In my book, the "most" historic of the bunch...There is so much history in this neck of the woods, I won't begin! All the coal camps you mentioned were alive & thriving ( at one time)... Stonecoal? That's a magical name! That particular coal co., I believe, was located at Greyeagle [and] founded by Fred Shewey's father, one of Buck Harless's buddies (a living legend in these parts). I've never visited Greyeagle ( though I've been by it a million times... Massey [Coal Company] has a loading facility there (VANTAGE), but recently shut it down. Nolan! Was ... one of the 1st major operations built here after the [railroad] came through! I've got a wonderful book on it with several nice pictures (it was put out by the company around the turn of the century, I'll dig it out). Chattaroy! I'm through there several times a week and some of the old houses are still standing (even though most have been modernized, but a couple are still vintage). Rawl and Lobata are still there. I guess you saw them when you were at Massey's operation (aka Rawl Sales). To make a long story short , there are just too many to list, but I'll throw a couple of more names at you with a rich coal heritage. Thacker, Himler, Naugatuck, Cinderella, Matewan, Ragland, (and this is WV only, I won't even start on Pike Co., Ky, just across the mighty TUG river!!"
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