HOME>SOUTHERN WV>KANAWHA COALFIELD>PAINT CREEK
SCENES ALONG PAINT CREEK
Kanawha and Fayette Counties, West Virginia
Paint Creek empties into the Kanawha River at Pratt. Also at Pratt
stood this house where UMWA / labor organizer Mother Jones was held prisoner during the 1912-1913 Paint Creek / Cabin
Creek Mine Wars. Unfortunately the house was torn down in 1996.
Paint Creek Collieries Co. miners and trip of coal cars at
Mucklow, WV. The name of Paint Creek Collieries' two mines at Mucklow were the Paint Creek Mine (opened in 1902) and Scranton Mine (opened in 1907).
Some of the remaining coal camp houses at Gallagher.
These ruins of a coal mine structure are also located
at Gallagher in someone's back yard, hence the mowed grass.
"The Church at Gallagher"
Paint Creek Collieries Company store
at Mucklow. In 1912 and 1913 there was a tremendous amount of violence between organized labor and the
coal company management/private mine guards/public police force axis of evil around Mucklow. The "mine wars" story
is too long to recount here, but it ranks down there with the Ludlow Massacre and Homestead Strike as a low point in industrial relations. The worst incident
of the whole affair was when UMWA strikers shot at a coal company ambulance and the company store, followed that evening by an armored train, boarded by
coal operators, mine guards, railroad police, deputies, and even the Kanwaha County sherrif, shooting up a tent colony near Mucklow where striking miners and
their families were living in union-supplied tents. Sadly, fatalities were reported.
The name of the coal camp was later
changed from Mucklow to Gallagher, probably because of the bad reputation of the name Mucklow. By then the company was calling
itself the Paint Creek Coal Mining Co. (Paint Creek
Coal Mining Co. also changed neighboring Wacomah to Livingston, and Tomsburg to Whittaker.)
Historic roadside marker about the infamous
Bull Moose Special train.
Tipple at powerhouse at Mucklow. The powerhouse almost looks
like it was of wooden construction. That wouldn't have been very safe. Later, for a few years around 1930, the Wacomah Fuel Co. ran the former Paint Creek Collieries mines on Paint Creek.
Standard, W.Va. coal camp was probably built by the Standard Splint & Gas Coal Company in 1903, the year the mine opened.
Tipple foundations at Glenhuddy, W.Va.
The now-vanished coal camp of Burnwell. Now, though, nothing remains of the town but memories. For more Burnwell
see my Burnwell page.
What's left of the Paint Creek Coal Mining Company's camp at Collinsdale, WV. There appears to be a coal car in the yard of the white house. Sometimes you see things such
as that when driving around West Virginia.
Superintendent's house at Mahan, W.Va. Like nearby Burnwell, this was a coal camp owned and operated by the Christian brothers interests, in this case called Christian Colliery Company.
Their Mahan Mine No. 1 was in the Powellton seam, and Mahan No. 3 was in the Eagle seam of coal. Mahan No. 3 & No. 4 mines closed in 1953.
This was probably the Eagle By-Products Coal Co. Krebs Mine. I remember this tipple along the WV Turnpike in the 1980s. By the time I went to college in 1990 it was gone.
A coal miner with his dinner bucket sitting down to lunch in the "dinner hole" in one of the Milburn Colliery Company's mines.
There is not much more than this sign left at Milburn, Fayette County. This coal mining town was opened in the early 1920's, and
at that time was a concern of the Milburn By-Products Coal Co (mining the Powellton seam). By the time this sign was erected, Milburn Collieries Co. was operating the Milburn mines. Milburn Collieries
kept the Milburn mines open into the 1980's. Around 1989 they leased the mines to Mountain Minerals Inc., who hired non-union miners. This brought about a wave of union violence resulting in the
bombing of a mine portal, followed by the burning of the Milburn tipple, followed by a bombing of fan house, and finally an unsuccessful attempt to bomb the electric substation of the mine. Nine
UMWA members were arrested in the Autumn of 1989, and that basically spelled the end of coal mining at Milburn.
I don't think Milburn was ever a very large coal town. In this photo part
of the Milburn coal camp can be seen, with the tipple and conveyor crossing Paint
Creek in the background. The large clearing going up the mountainside can still be seen along the WV Turnpike.
Ruins of Kingston Pocahontas Coal Company's Westerly Mine. Westerly was also for a time known as Keeferton.
Although the C&O served the mines along Paint Creek from that stream's mouth all the way to Kingston, a different railroad
hauled the coal from Paint Creek mines upstream of Kingston. The Virginian Railway's main line entered the Paint Creek valley
near Mossey and more or less followed Paint Creek all the way to its headwaters near Eccles. In this photo a
Virginian locomotive stops for water at Pax. Pax, WV not only became a small commercial center for surrounding coal towns
(Willis Branch, Weirwood, Long Branch), but was also the location of the junction of the Virginian Railway and the Kanawha,
Glen Jean, & Eastern Railway. That shortline tunnelled under the mountain between Pax and Mount Hope, and building a tunnel
under a large mountain was no small feat for a small shortline railroad. Later this railroad was taken up and abandoned. Then,
in 2006, it was reconstructed to serve a new coal loadout at Pax. The author remembers driving from Mount Hope to Pax
one Wednesday evening in July, 2006 and seeing a large group of men installing new rails.
Here's the company store that used to exist at Long Branch, WV. Long
Branch, near Pax, was opened in 1913 by the Long Branch Coal Co. with two mines - Long Branch No. 1 and No. 2 - in the Eagle and No. 2 Gas seams. A 2,050 incline brought coal down from the drift portal high
on the mountainside down to the tipple served by the Virginian Railway. In 1923 the Long Branch mines employed nearly 300 men. From 1927 until 1933 C.C.B. Smokeless Coal Co. ran
the Long Branch mines. Finally The Koppers Division of Eastern Gas & Fuel Associates operated the Long Branch mines and store
until 1946. Incidentally, I have never seen photos of coal company housing at Long Branch, nor is their any still existing, so
I really don't know if this was an actual coal camp or not.
Coal camp houses at Weirwood, WV.
Scene from many years ago showing the coal tipple at Willis Branch, WV. There was
a ridiculous amount of violence here in 1920-21 from the UMWA against the Willis Branch Coal Co. All types of people were terrorized, the mine hoist was damaged, dynamite was exploded in front of the superintendent's
house, street light poles dynamited, engine house dynamited, incline wrecked, electrical sub-station dynamited, rail cars destroyed, and finally the tipple was burned. Strikers
fired a hailstorm of bullets on Willis Branch - on the super's house, on company houses containing women and children, and on people coming and going from the town - for months, and some people
were killed. Later the UMWA settled with the coal company for an amount allegedly over $100,000. This was really a low point for UMWA guerrilla warfare.
When you think about it - the imprisonment of labor leader Mother Jones at a private home in Pratt (1912); the tragic mine wars around Mucklow (1913); the burning and bombing of the Milburn mine by the UMWA (1989); and the destruction of
the Willis Branch mine and town (1921) - the Paint Creek valley has been a valley of strife, violence, and death. Even the old two- and three-lane WV Turnpike
that was constructed through much of the Valley in 1954 was notorious for its dangers and deaths. (The Turnpike is four lanes now.)
National Historic Landmarks image
Circa 1906 C&O Railway image via Google Books
May 2015 image by author
May 2015 image by author
May 2015 image by author
C&O Railway image via Google Books
May 2015 image by author
Circa 1906 C&O Railway image via Google Books
Sept. 2001 image by author
Jan. 2020 image by author
Image from "Kanawha County Images, A Bicentennial History 1788-1988" by Stan Cohen
April 2009 image by author
April 2009 image by author
Probably 1980's image courtesy of kathypig1
Circa 1970s image by others
June 2001 image by author
Image courtesy
of Wanda Crouch via Dale Payne's "Fayette County The Early Years"
Mar. 2016 image by author
Image courtesy of Walter Caldwell
Image courtesy of Walter Caldwell
Feb. 2006 image by author
Image courtesy of Walter Caldwell