Fayette, also known as Fayette Station, was near where the Fayette Station bridge (now the Tunney Hunsaker bridge) crosses the New River. The first people to mine coal at Fayette did so under the name Wm.
Masters and Son, and they mined a negligible amount of coal in 1885 and 1886. Within a decade, however, Fayette Coal and Coke Co. began mining and shipping coal from Fayette, and they probably built a small mining town there, too.
Fayette Coal and Coke took a break and let the Low Moor Iron Co. work the lease in 1900 and 1901. Then Fayette Coal and Coke returned and operated the Fayette mine until the time of World War I. In 1916 Fayette Smokeless Coal Co.
too over the Fayette mine and ran it for two years, before passing the torch to Reliance Coal and Coke Co. Reliance gave up on the Fayette mine in 1920. In 1945 Hood Coal Co. either reopened the Fayette mine or drove an entry into
a new, adjacent Fayette mine. Hood shipped coal from Fayette until 1950. The last coal company at Fayette was apparently Fayette Low Ash Coal Co. in the 1960s.
Image source lost
I have never seen a photo of the Fayette mining camp, but here is a vintage view of the next coal camp over, so maybe the looked similar. This was Newland Coal Company's Newlyn, which is confusing,
because there was another Newlyn coal camp in the New River Coalfield about 10 miles away. Newlyn doesn't look like it was a very nice mining camp, with poor houses on wooden stilts scattered helter skelter over the mountainside.
March 2010 image by author
These mining ruins at Fayette, WV probably date back to the Hood Coal Company's operations in the mid-20th Century, and not the Fayette Coal and Coke Company mine from the late 19th Century. The silo, which has a chain conveyor coming up into it, was built by the Blaw-Knox company of Pittsburgh, PA, which was better known for their radio antennas. Also there are vestiges of
about a dozen beehive coke ovens next to this, which probably do date back to Fayette Coal and Coke. Other physical remnants of the Fayette mine are in the immediate vicinity, but nothing is left of the town.
March 2010 image by author
What appears to be the shell of a monitor car near the Fayette mine ruins.
2007 image, courtesy of Doug Andre
High above the New River is a bench containing remnants of the Fayette Mine, like this mine locomotive.
2007 image, courtesy of Doug Andre
A trolley wire support post (catenary) that is still in existence at the Fayette Mine site.
NPS image
Coal mine fan that is still at Fayette.
2017 image by Steve Bennett
A more recent photo by Steve shows the actual fan laying outside.
2017 image by Steve Bennett
Steve zoomed in to take this picture of the fan showing the manufacturer to be J.C. Stine Co.
Contributed by Steve Bennett
Steve also sent me this ad he found for J.C. Stine fans.
2017 image by Steve Bennett
Finally, steve photographed this Fayette monitor car.
October 2009 image by author
Rusting steel flume with remnants of a chain conveyor. In the background is a monitor car.
October 2009 image by author
Another view of the Fayette flume.
October 2009 image by author
C&O Railway mile marker 404 at Fayette.
Image by Lloyd D. Lewis, Huntington Herald-Dispatch
The railroad maintained a sign and shelter stop at Fayette into the New River Gorge Bridge era.
An August 12, 1947 issue of the Raleigh Register published an article titled, "Hood Mine Employees
Still Working Today" which stated: "All of the employees of the
Hood Coal company mine at Fayette
continue to work despite the
closing of two sections of the mine,
said C. E, Jones, district safety
director.
The sections were ordered closed
by the safety committee last week
because of the lack of adequate
ventilation and the possibility of
an explosion, Jones announced.
This committee action is authorized
by the new workers contract
signed last month, he added"
