Appalachian Community Histories – Big Creek, McDowell County: War, Coalwood, and the Communities Built by Coal
To someone unfamiliar with McDowell County, Big Creek may sound like the name of a single town hidden somewhere among the mountains of southern West Virginia. Historically, however, Big Creek was something much larger. It was one of the county’s original political divisions, first known as Big Creek Township and later as Big Creek Magisterial District.
Within its boundaries stood War, Coalwood, Caretta, Berwind, Bartley, Cucumber, Newhall, Squire, Rift, and numerous smaller coal camps and settlements. Each community developed its own identity, but their histories were connected by the same streams, railroads, coal seams, schools, businesses, and families.
Historic records may therefore describe a person as living in Big Creek District even when that person’s home was in Bartley, Berwind, Coalwood, or another named community. Census schedules, deeds, death certificates, mine reports, and newspapers often used the district name alongside individual towns and mining operations.
This Big Creek should not be confused with the community of the same name in Logan County. The Big Creek discussed here belonged to McDowell County and became one of the most heavily industrialized sections of the Appalachian coalfields.
From Township to Magisterial District
McDowell County was created from part of Tazewell County, Virginia, in 1858. When West Virginia entered the Union during the Civil War, the new state reorganized county government around townships. McDowell County’s original divisions included Big Creek, Elkhorn, and Sandy River.
West Virginia later replaced the township system with magisterial districts, but the Big Creek name survived. It remained an important geographic and governmental designation for elections, property records, schools, census enumeration, road administration, and local identity.
Big Creek District also occupied an important place in the early political history of McDowell County. In the 1870s, county officials moved the courthouse to a location at the mouth of Reedy Springs Branch within Big Creek District. A settlement grew around the courthouse and became known as Perryville, one of McDowell County’s earliest organized towns. Perryville was later renamed English.
At that time, the district was still far removed from the industrial landscape that would later define it. Families lived along creeks and narrow river bottoms, where they farmed limited patches of land, raised livestock, harvested timber, and traveled over rough mountain roads. The coal beneath their homes was already present, but the railroads, capital, and machinery needed to extract it on a massive scale had not yet arrived.
Big Creek Before the Coal Boom
The federal census offers one of the clearest ways to understand how quickly Big Creek changed. In 1890, Big Creek District contained approximately 1,271 people. By 1900, its population had increased only modestly to 1,393.
McDowell County as a whole remained thinly populated compared with what it would soon become. The county contained 7,300 residents in 1890 and 18,747 in 1900. Even that countywide increase was only the beginning of the transformation.
In 1900, Big Creek was still a collection of rural settlements, small mining openings, timber operations, farms, post offices, and scattered households. Communities were often identified by the creek or branch on which they stood. A place name might refer to a postal station, a mine, a railroad stop, a company camp, or a cluster of houses rather than an incorporated municipality.
The geography shaped nearly everything. Steep mountains limited construction to narrow valleys. Roads followed streams. Rail lines had to wind between ridges. Homes, stores, schools, churches, tipples, and mine entrances were crowded onto whatever level ground could be found.
That isolation began to disappear as coal companies acquired mineral rights and the Norfolk and Western Railway extended branches deeper into southern McDowell County.
Coal and Railroads Transform the District
The first decade of the twentieth century brought one of the most dramatic population increases in Big Creek’s history. The district’s population rose from 1,393 in 1900 to 8,221 in 1910. In only ten years, the number of residents had grown nearly sixfold.
Coal companies purchased large tracts of land, leased mineral rights, opened mines, constructed tipples, and built railroad connections. Around each new operation appeared rows of company houses, boardinghouses, stores, churches, schools, and administrative buildings.
What had once been a rural mountain district became a network of industrial settlements. Some communities were created almost entirely by coal companies. Others grew from earlier settlements that became surrounded by mines and railroad activity.
The railroad made the entire system possible. Coal could be loaded into cars at the tipple and shipped to industrial markets far beyond West Virginia. Machinery, building materials, food, clothing, and new residents could be brought into valleys that had previously been difficult to reach.
The district’s communities did not develop in isolation. Workers moved between mines. Families shopped in War, attended churches in neighboring camps, visited relatives across the district, and sent their children to shared schools. A mine closure in one community could affect businesses and households many miles away.
War Becomes the Commercial Center
War developed into the principal commercial center of Big Creek District. Before the arrival of the railroad, the settlement was sometimes known as Miners City because several small mining operations were active in the surrounding area.
The Norfolk and Western Railway reached the community in 1904 and constructed a depot. The town became known as War, taking its name from nearby War Creek, and was incorporated in 1920.
Unlike settlements controlled almost entirely by one coal company, War developed a more varied business district that served surrounding mining towns. Residents from Coalwood, Caretta, Berwind, Bartley, and smaller camps traveled there to shop, conduct business, attend school events, watch motion pictures, and obtain services unavailable in their own communities.
At its height, War contained three theaters, furniture stores, clothing and shoe stores, restaurants, banks, professional offices, and approximately fifteen churches. The concentration of independent businesses made it an important gathering place for southern McDowell County.
War Elementary School was constructed in 1923. Big Creek High School followed in the early 1930s, further establishing War as the educational and civic center of the district.
The prosperity visible along War’s commercial streets depended heavily on the mines surrounding the town. When those mines operated at full strength, miners and their families filled the stores and theaters. When employment declined, War’s businesses felt the effects.
Coalwood and the Vision of a Model Company Town
Coalwood became one of the most widely remembered communities in Big Creek District. Before industrial development, the area was known as Snakeroot. It had briefly been selected as a possible county seat during the nineteenth century, although county records and buildings were never permanently established there.
Industrialist George Lafayette Carter began acquiring land in the area during the opening years of the twentieth century. His Virginia Pocahontas Coal Company began constructing the Coalwood operation around 1902.
The community grew rapidly. Coalwood’s population increased from approximately 125 people in 1903 to more than 900 by 1910. Mines, houses, stores, offices, rail facilities, schools, and churches appeared along the narrow valley.
During the 1920s, Consolidation Coal Company acquired the operation and invested heavily in Coalwood, Caretta, and nearby camps. Hundreds of houses were built or improved. Coalwood received substantial community buildings, boardinghouses, stores, schools, and a prominent clubhouse.
The company arranged the town according to occupation and status. Mine workers generally lived in standardized company houses, while supervisors, engineers, doctors, and company officials occupied larger residences. The arrangement reflected the hierarchy of the coal industry in the physical layout of the town.
Coalwood was often described as a model company town because of its planned appearance and the quality of some of its facilities. Yet it remained dependent on the mine. The company influenced housing, employment, recreation, commerce, and many other parts of daily life.
George Carter regained control of the operation during the Great Depression. Ownership changed again in the late 1940s, when the mines became associated with the Olga Coal Company. Coal production continued for decades, but the community gradually changed as houses were sold, railroad facilities were removed, and employment declined.
Coalwood later became known around the world through the writings of Homer Hickam, who grew up there during the 1950s. His account of young people experimenting with rockets against the background of a coal company town introduced generations of readers to Coalwood and Big Creek High School.
Caretta and the Company Store
Caretta developed alongside Coalwood as part of the same industrial system. It began as a logging settlement and was sometimes identified as Camp No. 5. The construction of a Norfolk and Western branch into the area by 1905 encouraged the transition from timber production to coal mining.
The Carter interests established major mining operations in the area during the early twentieth century. Caretta’s population increased from approximately 622 people in 1920 to 2,773 in 1930, showing how quickly a mining camp could expand when production and employment were strong.
Consolidation Coal Company acquired the Caretta properties in 1922 and constructed many of the buildings that defined the community. These included residences, schools, churches, commercial buildings, and an imposing company store.
The company store was more than a place to purchase food and clothing. It could contain the post office, payroll offices, company accounting departments, and other services. Workers came there to collect wages, settle accounts, purchase supplies, and receive information from company officials.
Stores of this kind occupied a complicated position in coalfield life. They served as commercial and social centers, but they also demonstrated how thoroughly a company could shape the lives of its employees. A mining family might depend upon the same corporation for work, housing, medical care, fuel, transportation, and access to basic goods.
The surviving Carter Coal Company Store became one of Caretta’s most important historic landmarks and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. It remains physical evidence of the community’s industrial past and the company-town system that once dominated much of McDowell County.
Berwind and a Planned Mining Community
Berwind was established in 1905 by the New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company. Like many planned mining towns, it was constructed to house workers close to the company’s operations.
The community included a company store, bank, post office, clubhouse, churches, and several types of residences. Housing reflected occupational rank. Workers lived in relatively modest company houses, while supervisors and professional employees occupied larger homes.
Berwind’s development illustrates the speed with which coal companies could create communities in previously rural valleys. The company cleared land, constructed buildings, opened mines, and recruited the workforce necessary to operate them.
The mines later passed to Pocahontas Fuel Company. Mining continued until 1967, when the local operations closed. The end of mining removed the economic foundation on which Berwind had been built.
A professional historic-resource survey later identified more than sixty contributing buildings and structures in the proposed Berwind Historic District. The surviving homes, churches, commercial buildings, and community features preserve part of the physical pattern of an early twentieth-century coal town.
Bartley and the Human Cost of Coal
No history of Big Creek District is complete without remembering Bartley and the disaster that occurred there in 1940.
On January 10, an explosion tore through the Pond Creek No. 1 mine at Bartley. One hundred thirty-eight men were inside the mine. Forty-seven escaped or survived, but ninety-one miners were killed.
The disaster became one of the deadliest mining accidents in West Virginia history. Rescue workers entered dangerous underground passages while families waited outside for news. The recovery effort continued for days.
The deaths affected far more than one community. The victims belonged to families spread across Bartley and the surrounding coal camps. Churches, schools, businesses, and entire neighborhoods mourned together.
Government investigations examined methane, ventilation, ignition, mine conditions, and safety practices. The disaster became another reminder that the coal feeding the nation’s industries carried an enormous human cost for the communities that produced it.
Bartley remained a living community after the disaster, but January 10, 1940, became part of its permanent identity. The names of the dead entered family histories, memorial observances, newspaper accounts, cemetery records, and the broader history of mining safety.
Big Creek High School and a Shared District Identity
Big Creek High School opened in War in January 1932. Its name reflected the larger district it served rather than the town in which the building stood.
Students came from communities connected by mountain roads, company buses, family ties, and coal employment. For many young people from War, Coalwood, Caretta, Berwind, Bartley, and nearby settlements, the school provided one of the few institutions shared across community boundaries.
Athletics, band programs, clubs, plays, graduations, and school events created a Big Creek identity that existed alongside loyalty to individual towns. Yearbooks preserved photographs not only of students and teachers but also of local businesses, mines, organizations, and community life.
Homer Hickam graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960. His memoir about growing up in Coalwood and experimenting with rockets brought national recognition to the school. In the story, education offered a possible path beyond the mine, even though nearly every family remained connected to coal.
Big Creek High School continued operating until 2010, when it was closed during the consolidation that created River View High School. By then, the school had served the district for more than three quarters of a century.
Its closing represented more than the loss of a building. It marked the disappearance of one of the last institutions that still carried the Big Creek name across generations.
The District at Its Height
By the middle of the twentieth century, Big Creek District had become one of the most populated sections of McDowell County.
The federal census recorded 19,007 residents in Big Creek District in 1930. The population increased to 19,828 in 1940 and reached 20,769 in 1950. McDowell County as a whole contained 98,887 people in 1950, the largest population recorded in the county’s history.
The 1950 census listed 3,898 people in War, 1,971 in Bartley, 1,860 in Caretta, 1,840 in Squire, 1,554 in Berwind, 1,310 in Coalwood, and 1,098 in the combined Cucumber and Newhall community.
Thousands more lived in smaller settlements, unincorporated areas, and company camps scattered throughout the district. The population figures reveal why Big Creek should not be understood as one town. It was an interconnected industrial region containing numerous communities.
The district’s mines produced coal, but they also produced a distinctive society. Families built churches, joined lodges, formed baseball teams, operated businesses, attended schools, published newspapers, and created networks that extended from one valley to another.
Life was shaped by difficult labor and company authority, but residents did not merely exist as employees of coal corporations. They created communities with traditions, rivalries, celebrations, religious institutions, music, athletics, political organizations, and strong family identities.
Mechanization and the Long Decline
Big Creek’s population depended upon an industry that required large numbers of workers. As mining became more mechanized, companies could produce coal with fewer employees.
The effects became increasingly visible after the Second World War. Mines consolidated or closed. Rail service was reduced. Company houses were sold to private owners. Younger residents left in search of work in northern and midwestern cities.
McDowell County still had more than 98,000 residents in 1950, but its population had fallen to approximately 50,400 by 1970. During roughly the same period, county mining employment declined from around 20,000 workers to approximately 7,000.
Each closure brought consequences beyond the mine entrance. Stores lost customers. Schools enrolled fewer children. Churches saw congregations shrink. Local governments collected less revenue. Houses were abandoned or demolished, and railroad tracks that had once carried countless coal cars disappeared beneath roads and vegetation.
Berwind’s mines closed in 1967. Coalwood’s operations survived longer, but employment and population declined as its mines were combined, transferred, or shut down. War’s commercial district weakened as the surrounding mining population decreased.
The decline was not a single event. It unfolded over decades, one mine, store, school, railroad spur, and household at a time.
Remembering Big Creek
Big Creek District cannot be reduced to a census boundary or a list of vanished mines. Its history survives in the communities that remain and in the records left behind by the people who lived there.
The Carter Coal Company Store still stands in Caretta. Historic houses remain in Berwind and Coalwood. Churches, cemeteries, school photographs, mine maps, newspaper reports, death certificates, and family collections preserve evidence of communities that may no longer appear clearly on modern maps.
The district also survives through memory. Former students still identify themselves with Big Creek High School. Families remember the mines where parents and grandparents worked. Bartley’s dead are still mourned. Coalwood remains linked with the Rocket Boys, while War continues to represent the commercial and civic heart of the surrounding area.
Understanding Big Creek as a district allows these individual histories to be placed together. War, Caretta, Coalwood, Berwind, Bartley, Cucumber, Newhall, Squire, Rift, and the smaller camps were separate communities, but they belonged to the same industrial landscape.
Together, they tell the story of how coal transformed southern McDowell County. They also show what happened when the industry that created those communities no longer needed the same number of people.
The mountains remain, as do the streams and many of the old roads. Yet beneath the present landscape lies another Big Creek, filled with railroad depots, crowded schoolrooms, company stores, theater lights, mine whistles, tipples, boardinghouses, and thousands of families whose lives became part of Appalachian history.
Sources & Further Reading
Aurora Research Associates. “McDowell County, West Virginia, Historic Resource Survey.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://www.aurora-llc.com/portfolio/mcdowell-county-survey/
Battlo, Jean. McDowell County in West Virginia and American History. Parsons, WV: McClain Printing Company, 1998. https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=%22McDowell+County+in+West+Virginia+and+American+History%22
Hennen, Ray V., and Robert M. Gawthrop. Wyoming and McDowell Counties. Wheeling, WV: West Virginia Geological Survey, 1915. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006731317
Hickam, Homer H., Jr. Rocket Boys: A Memoir. New York: Delacorte Press, 1998. https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=%22Rocket+Boys%22+Homer+Hickam
Kenny, Hamill. West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains. Piedmont, WV: Place Name Press, 1945. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015009099824
Library of Congress. “Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information Photographs of McDowell County, West Virginia.” Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=McDowell%20County%20West%20Virginia%20Marion%20Post%20Wolcott
Library of Congress. “The McDowell Times, Keystone, West Virginia, 1904–1941.” Chronicling America. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86092050/
McDowell County Commission. “History of McDowell County.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://mcdowellcountycommission.com/history/
McDowell County Historical Society. The Heritage of McDowell County, West Virginia, 1858–1995. War, WV: McDowell County Historical Society, 1995. https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=%22Heritage+of+McDowell+County%22
McDowell Public Library. “Collections and Services.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://mcdowell.lib.wv.us/collection.htm
Mine Safety and Health Administration. “Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States.” United States Department of Labor. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://arlweb.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT8.htm
National Coal Heritage Area. Coal Heritage Survey Update: Final Report, McDowell County, West Virginia. 2017. https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/national-coal/survey.pdf
National Park Service. Coal Company Stores in McDowell County. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500726_text
National Park Service. West Virginia National Coal Heritage Area Evaluation Findings. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2012. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritageareas/upload/National-Coal-Evaluation-Findings-Report-Final.pdf
Schust, Alex P. Billion Dollar Coalfield: West Virginia’s McDowell County and the Industrialization of America. Harwood, MD: Two Mule Publishing, 2010. https://search.worldcat.org/title/Billion-dollar-coalfield-%3A-West-Virginia%27s-McDowell-County-and-the-industrialization-of-America/oclc/666823075
United States Bureau of the Census. Census of Population, 1950: Number of Inhabitants, West Virginia. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1952. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-51.pdf
United States Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910: Population of West Virginia. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1913. https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/41033935v47-52ch1.pdf
United States Census Bureau. West Virginia: 2010, Population and Housing Unit Counts. Washington, DC: United States Department of Commerce, 2012. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/2010/cph-2/cph-2-50.pdf
United States Census Office. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900: Population of West Virginia. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1901. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1900/bulletins/demographic/53-population-wv.pdf
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Pocahontas Mines Collection, 1883–1997.” Collection Ms-2004-002. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://aspace.lib.vt.edu/repositories/2/resources/3408
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “‘History of McDowell County’ and ‘Directory of McDowell County Officials, 1858–1958.’” William Archer Research Papers, A&M 4388, box 5, folder 6. West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/96419
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Ferdinand C. Menk Coal Mining Records.” West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/2040
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Stevens Coal Company Records, 1891–1907.” West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/691
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “William Archer, Journalist, Research Papers Regarding McDowell and Mercer Counties.” A&M 4388. West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/6481
West Virginia Department of Mines. Annual Reports of the Department of Mines. Charleston: State of West Virginia, various years. https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22West+Virginia.+Department+of+Mines%22
West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey. “Publications, Maps, and Services Catalog.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://downloads.wvgs.wvnet.edu/pubcat/docs/WVGES_Publication_Catalog.pdf
West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. “West Virginia Mine Map Archives.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://minesafety.wv.gov/historical-statistical-data/west-virginia-mine-map-archives/
West Virginia State Archives. “Vital Research Records Project.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://wvculture.org/vital-records-interactive/
West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office. “Carter Coal Company Store.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Accessed July 17, 2026. https://wvculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Carter-coal-company-store-CR2.pdf
West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office. “National Register of Historic Places Nominations: McDowell County.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://wvculture.org/agencies/state-historic-preservation-office-shpo/register-of-historical-places/national-register-of-historic-places-nominations/mcdowell-county/
The West Virginia Encyclopedia. “McDowell County.” Accessed July 17, 2026. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1631
Author Note: Big Creek is often mistaken for a single community, but its history belongs to an entire district of coal towns, schools, mines, and families. I wrote this article to bring War, Coalwood, Caretta, Berwind, Bartley, and their neighboring settlements into one connected historical story.