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Coal mining in West Virginia would not have been a possibility if it were not for the rugged and tough people who have endured
the difficult conditions that make up a coal mining community.
The early days of mining were anything else but sweet and harmonious. Terrible conditions existed in housing and health care
was basically non-existant. Many mining families consisted of mom and dad plus children numbering as high as 6 to 12, not
in age but in family members. Usually sharing the same bed or sleeping on cots on the floor or the floor itself.
As a child growing up, I remember different movies and television stories that would take place around coal mining communities.
The characters who would be coming into the area were educated, well dressed driving fine cars and the residents of the coal
mining communities were hillbillie hicks who would
be wearing feed sack dresses, bibbed overalls, no shoes and chewing tobacco and that was just the female characters. West
Virginia coal miners and their families are a proud breed of people who have worked in different and sometimes life threatening
jobs to provide for their families. The early miners
had very little in the way of luxurious pleasures. Most of them may have been immigrant workers who had large families and
because of the financial hardships that they endured, only a small part of the children had the pleasure of being educated.
Most of the male children were employed in the mines or
tipples like their adult counterparts were and paid very little with no type of benefits. Their lives and futures were not
really left for them to decide. They knew that they had to do what they must to help the family survive. Some young boys would
begin working because their fathers were hurt or either
killed in the mines and they were left with no choice but to begin their career as a coal miner, never being able again to
make a choice not to enter the mine.
Money was a hard commodity to come by in the early days. Before the days of the labor unions, it was estimated that the coalminers
annual wage for the year 1913, was around 48 cents per ton of coal that they mined, averaging out to be close to $737.62 for
a pick miner for the whole year. If they were lucky
to work for a large company that provided housing, it wasnt hard to find a place to live, maybe to pay the rent. The houses
consisted of rough lumber material with no indoor plumbing or electricity in some cases. Heat came from a single coal burning
or wood burning stove in the living room of the house or a
fireplace if the home had been constructed with such. Usually he was paid in a type of currency called script, it had the
same face value as government currency but it could only be used at the issuing companys stores and other company owned businesses.
He was required to purchase all materials and tools
needed to do the job he was hired to do from the company store and usually it was on credit. If a man was hired to blast or
shoot coal, he had to buy caps, fuses and even the dynamite from the company.
The needs of a growing family usually meant that the miner was working for the company for nothing. Therefore most of the
early miners were forever in debt to the coal company as long as they worked. Most married miners tried to keep a small garden
in the summer to help grow some of the food that the family
needed to eat. When the wife needed to see a doctor for obstetrical needs, or if someone in the immediate family needed to
see a doctor for any reason that home made remedies could not cure, they turned to the company doctor. He was either visited
or called in to the home and his expenses were taken directly
from the miners pay. More than one miner would often go to the company office on payday and receive an empty envelope because
the company had deducted his bills from his pay and he had no money left to help him along till the next payday.
College or higher education wasnt something children dreamed of either. Many sons of coalminers would follow in their fathers
footsteps and venture into the mine as well. In earlier Mine Reports concerning accidents, it wasnt uncommon to see the list
of fatalities list the names of fathers, sons,
brothers and uncles as names of the victims. As a coal company and the town it built grew, entire families were employed and
thus wiped out if an explosion ever took place.
Old miners that were interviewed had spoke of the pre-union coal mining days as the meanest and hardest life in the world.
Bad air, workers being trapped behind smoke and not being able to escape to fresh air. The poor roof conditions of the earlier
mines giving way to roof falls, trapping and even killing
men as they were working. Water seeping into the mine shafts making working conditions cold damp and unbearable. The pure
physical agony of working in a narrow seam of coal all stooped over or loading coal cars while crouched over on your knees
in seams less than 32 inches high in mud holes for the entire work shift which sometimes could last as long as 12 hours or
more.
Terrible working conditions and the inability of the workers and company officials to
negotiate health, safety and pay issues led the way to militant unionization of the industry. But before the time that unions
became acceptable, there have been many fatal skirmishes between the workers and company guards, and in some cases, outside
hired guns were even used.
A security organization in the early days know as the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, were hired by many large companies to
help curb the spread of unionization. Thugs like these are guilty of murdering countless coal miners. And not just the miners
themselves, but there are proven documented cases where they rode train cars and opened fire on strike camps
with no mercy and killing workers, their wives and even children. They showed no mercy at all. In many areas in the southern
coalfields, you can see the sites and battlegrounds where these murders took place. Even in Kanawha county, you can still
find bunkers and foxholes where gunfire was exchanged in this deadly struggle to improve working conditions for the miners.
Immigrants were often hired to work the mines because of the steady flow of immigrants
into the country in the early 19th century. Miners who were trapped underground during explosions did not even have the courtesy
of having their remains removed from the mine. The area where they were entrapped was often sealed up and new entries were
began and work was rarely interrupted.
Permanently sealed off and somewhere inside, another statistic sleeps until the resurrection, as one author phrased it. Most
of the immigrant miners were not even known by their given names as one place in Kanawha county reflects that Italian # 14,
perished in this mine and maybe, only those who worked beside him knew who he was.
The living conditions for the whole family were not as good as those who lived in cities. Most companies built their own homes
for the workers to live in while they were employed. The conditions were bad, no running water or heat. No insulation to protect
against the harsh winter weather and in most cases, no electricity.
The mine foreman and superintendents homes were luxurious compared to the homes of the work force. Keep in mind that the houses
for the workers were not provided free of charge, quit the contrary, the coal companies often charged hefty amounts of rent
for these, often shacks. And when the worker was fired, quit or injured
in an accident and could not work or pay the rent, the company would evict them without so much as a days notice. A warm and
compassionate forgiving word was never in the company officials vocabulary. If a worker was killed in an accident, the workers
family was evicted from the home to make room for the next worker who was
to take his place. Often times, the company security guards would come on the property and haul out the furniture and personal
belongings and throw them out in the street. I am not sure if all coal companies were the same at this time or not, but I
know that during the period of unionization, the company guards were not merciful
and they did whatever the company told them to do any way that they had to do it.
Times have changed and my feelings are still as strong as they ever were towards the early miners and their families. They
are never to be forgotten, nor made to be ignorant hillbillies in any way. They were ever day common people who done the best
that they could to make a living any way that they could. Times and lifestyles
for them were never easy, they fought and struggled for all that they had, and the change in the coal industry, by todays
standards, we owe it all to their sacrifice. Today, a miner who works in a union organized mine, can earn up to $80,000 a
year, with two weeks paid vacation, sick days, holiday pay, full medical insurance and,
depending on the company itself, production bonus, safety bonus, clothing allowance and many more benefits. Of course the
cost of living also increases with the increase of wages in a particular area, and that is normal. And still today, those
benefits are continued to be fought for as they were a quarter of a century ago.
Companies do not like to lose money and never did. The labor contracts with the United Mine Workers of America, are still
being negotiated to insure the safety of all its members. Contract strikes are not as frequent or as violent as they were
in the early years. Many people, both men, women and children, have lost their lives
for the union that many take for granted today. And perhaps I may cover more on this issue later on this web site, because
their lives and sacrifice must be documented for our posterity. It is not my intention to make the coal companies look like
mean and sadistic corporations, but rather, the times and lives of miners and companies
are part of our heritage and therefore I feel it should be documented. To remember the ones who have come and gone and left
their mark upon the industry itself.
What is to become of an area after the mining has come and gone? What happens to the
people that depended on the mining industry for their livelihood? As I look back on my childhood and remember the days when
coal was king in this region, jobs were plentiful and the economy was booming, along with the coal industry itself.
But sooner or later it would happen and it did. People began blaming acid rain effect on the use of coal and other fossil
fuels. Environmental advocates wanted to ban all fossil fuel use and eventually the coal industry began to suffer. We must
realize that it was not just the companies themselves that suffered. No doubt
many of them became bankrupt or simply moved to other states that had a low-sulfer content of coal to mine, but it was the
towns and communities and most certainly, the people were the ones who suffered the most. Towns that had once been the hub
of economic expansion were now starting to slowly fade away. With the coal companies
gone or leaving, the workers were forced to become unemployed, this led to the closure of many businesses. As a child, I remember
the drive to the county seat of McDowell County, Welch, to take care of some family business and do the shopping in town.
People seemed to be everywhere. The small town had three hospitals, a courthouse,
pharmacy, department stores and at least four jewelry stores, not to mention the clothing stores and general supply shops.
Christmas  was made easy in that little
town, as I recall, and one of the biggest problems in town at Christmas was alwaysparking. Now, as I drive downtown in Welch,
what I see, is a mirror reflection of all
the small coal mining communities here in southern West Virginia. The courthouse is still there and in service and there are
two pharmacies in town. The jewelry stores are nothing but old dirty, boarded up storefronts that have not been open to the
public in years. All but one hospital has closed their doors and been torn down,
all that remains are the memories. Two small department stores are all tat remains in business in town along with the only
furniture shop. Where did the businesses go? They went the same way that the residents had to gomoved to another state.
More about West Virginia coal people to come. Check back later
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