– Chapter 3 –
The Death of Coal Is a Myth
Coal was first discovered in West Virginia in 1742, more than 120 years before it officially became the 35th state. By the 1880s, John Nuttall – a lifelong miner who had emigrated from England in 1849 – had amassed 30,000 acres of land along Keeneys Creek. And in the early 1890s, he convinced the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) to build a spur from the mainline near the New River Gorge in Nuttallburg to the area around Winona, West Virginia to transport coal out of the town. After that, commercial coal mining in the region boomed. Masters Coal, Boone Coal & Coke, Ballinger Coal & Coke, Smokeless Coal, and Rothwell Coal were some of the companies that opened mines along the Sewell seam between Winona and nearby Lookout. In its heyday at the start of the 20th century, roughly 1,100 people lived in Winona. Lots of different businesses dotted the town through the years, including the Winona National Bank, a drugstore, a meat market, a barbershop, several hotels, and of course... a pool room. But the glory days are long gone in Winona... It’s a ghost town today. Much of the New River Coal Field played out in the early 1950s. The last mines died in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now, only about 200 people are scattered around Winona and the surrounding area. Big Coal hasn’t completely left West Virginia... But it’s enduring a slow, painful death.
147
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker