e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia Online

Coal Mining

Last updated on 02 May 2025 by Stan Bumgardner

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Coal has been known in Western Virginia since colonial times, used for home cooking and heating, but it wasn’t used for commercial business purposes until the early 1800s. The first coal mining started near Charleston on the Kanawha River and near Wheeling on the Ohio River, where people and industries were already settled.

  • Mining for the Salt Industry

    In the late 1700s and early 1800s, salt furnaces in Kanawha County were initially fueled by timber, but as the forests became depleted, operators started mining coal. By 1840, 90 furnaces used 200,000 tons of coal a year to make salt. Over 900 wor...

  • Cannel Coal

    Cannel coal is a smoky, easily lit type of coal once used to make oil for lighting. It was popular in the 1850s because one bushel could produce about two gallons of crude oil. Many coal oil plants opened in West Virginia, especially near the Elk,...

  • Coal River Navigation

    In the 1840s, William Peyton and others began mining cannel coal along the Coal and Little Coal rivers . Cannel coal was used to make oil for lighting. To ship the coal, they built locks and dams to make the Coal River easier to travel. The projec...

  • Coming of the Railroads

    The Civil War slowed coal industry growth, but key figures like Jedediah Hotchkiss and the Imboden brothers explored coal areas during and after the war, helping future development. Big growth came in southern West Virginia when the Chesapeake &am...

  • The Northern Coalfields

    Northern West Virginia had its own coal pioneers, led by James Otis Watson, known as the father of the state’s coal industry. Born in 1815 near Fairmont, Watson started the Montana Mining Company in 1852 and was the first in West Virginia to ship ...

  • Consolidation Coal

    In the early 1900s, the Fleming-Watson family gained control of several major coal companies, including Fairmont Coal. In 1906, they bought most of the stock in three coal companies for $5 million. With support from U.S. Senator Johnson N. Camden ...

  • The Southern Coalfields

    The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) didn’t buy land along its tracks, so independent companies and investors took over coal lands in the New and Kanawha valleys. These early coal operators, such as Joseph Beury and John Nutall, hired skill...

  • Growth of Southern West Virginia

    Big investments in West Virginia's coal industry changed the region's economy and way of life. Railroads helped move coal and connected the state to the rest of the country. Since there weren't enough local workers, companies brought in people fro...

  • Company Towns

    Before 1880, West Virginia was mostly made up of farms and small settlements. But in the 1880s, the coal industry changed the landscape. Railroads brought mining companies, which built company towns around the mines. These towns had houses, a comp...

  • Company Stores

    In the late 1800s and early 1900s, company stores (pictured here in Marion County) were common in coal mining, lumber, and textile towns. These stores, owned by the company, were often the only place to shop for residents. They were modeled after ...

  • Scrip

    Scrip was a form of private currency used in many West Virginia coal towns, issued by coal companies in the form of paper or metal tokens. It was used instead of cash for buying goods at company stores. Scrip helped companies keep money in their c...

  • The Miners

    The coal industry in West Virginia grew rapidly in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1867, only 490,000 tons of coal were produced, but by 1917, production soared to 89.4 million tons. The number of mine workers grew from 3,701 in 1880 to nearly ...

  • Black Miners

    African Americans were crucial to the growth of West Virginia's coal industry. Black workers helped build railroads like the Chesapeake & Ohio, Norfolk & Western, and Virginian, and later worked in the coal mines. During World War I, more ...

  • The Labor Movement

    Before the Great Depression, over 90% of miners in southern West Virginia lived in company-owned towns without public services. Miners faced poor working conditions and often clashed with coal companies, especially over forming unions like the Uni...

  • Early Mining

    In early West Virginia coal mining, most mines were drift mines, built into hillsides, which were cheaper and easier to dig than deep vertical mines. Miners used a method called "room-and-pillar," where tunnels were dug in a grid pattern and block...

  • Coal Mechanization and Job Losses

    Mechanization in West Virginia coal mines happened gradually through the first half of the 1900s. Early mining was done mostly by hand, but machines were introduced over time to help with hauling, ventilation, and cutting coal. Electricity became ...

  • Surface Mining

    Surface mining, also called strip mining, removes coal from the surface instead of underground and poses more potential damage to the land. It started in West Virginia in 1916 and grew during the world wars with better machines and roads. By 1947,...

  • Mountaintop Removal Mining

    Mountaintop removal began in 1967 and expanded in the 1980s with large machines. By the 1990s, it had become more common due to demand for cleaner coal, but it caused serious environmental damage and forced some people to leave their homes. Mounta...

  • Coal Mine Deaths

    Since 1883, more than 21,000 miners have died in West Virginia coal mines. Many of these deaths were single accidents, but some were major disasters. A disaster is when three or more miners are killed. The first major one happened in 1886, killing...

  • Black Lung

    Black lung disease, or coal miner’s pneumoconiosis, is caused by breathing in coal dust, which damages the lungs over time. Tiny dust particles reach deep into the lungs and cause scarring, breathing problems, and can lead to emphysema, chronic br...