Appalachian Community Histories – Carbo, Russell County: Coal, Railroads, Electric Power, and the Battle for Moss No. 3
Carbo is easy to pass without realizing how much history lies along the Clinch River and the narrow valley of Dumps Creek. The Russell County community was never incorporated as a large town, never developed a courthouse square, and never became a regional commercial center. Yet Carbo stood at the intersection of several forces that transformed twentieth-century Appalachia.
Two railroads passed through the community. Coal mines and processing plants spread through the surrounding valleys. A wartime chemical operation produced material needed by the explosives industry. One of Virginia’s largest electric generating stations rose beside the Clinch River during the 1950s. Three decades later, the nearby Moss No. 3 preparation plant became the setting for the defining act of civil disobedience in the Pittston Coal Strike.
Carbo’s story is not simply about the rise and decline of a coal town. It is the history of a place repeatedly chosen for major industrial projects because of its coal, water, railroads, and relatively level land. Each project brought promises of prosperity, and each left a different mark on the community.
From Kiser to Carbo
Before it was known as Carbo, the settlement was called Kiser, apparently for members of the Kiser family who were among the area’s early settlers. The older name remained attached to the landscape long after Carbo appeared on maps. Historical topographic maps identified the great curve of the Clinch River near the future power plant as Kiser Bend, while later newspaper references sometimes used the spelling Kaiser when identifying the Carbo community. The evidence supports a connection between Kiser and Carbo, although the exact date and circumstances of the name change remain uncertain.
The physical setting shaped nearly everything that followed. Carbo developed near the Clinch River and the mouth of Dumps Creek, surrounded by ridges underlain with commercially valuable coal. The river offered water for industrial operations. The valleys created natural routes through the mountains. Once railroads entered Russell County, the community became a convenient meeting point between coal production, transportation, and outside investment.
Carbo was part of a larger cluster of Russell County coal communities that included Dante, Wilder, Cleveland, Clinchfield, South Clinchfield, and Drill. These places differed in size and organization, but all were changed by the arrival of railroads and the opening of large commercial mines during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The county’s historic-resources survey classifies Carbo as one of the communities that rapidly emerged along the Norfolk and Western and Clinchfield systems.
The Railroads Create a Community
Carbo’s early importance came from its position near the junction of two major railroad systems. The Norfolk and Western Railway’s Clinch Valley Extension reached Russell County during the great expansion of Appalachian coal transportation near the end of the nineteenth century. The Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway later pushed through the region, linking the coalfields with markets farther south.
The Clinchfield’s Dumps Creek Branch depended upon access through St. Paul and Carbo, even though the branch did not directly connect with the railroad’s main line. The railroad used trackage rights over the Norfolk and Western to reach mines and industrial facilities along Dumps Creek. Carbo therefore became more than a settlement beside the tracks. It became an operating point through which coal, equipment, workers, and freight moved between mines and competing railroad networks.
The Russell County historic-resources survey describes early Carbo as a small railroad and mining town. Residents found employment in nearby mines, at the Carbo Coal and Coke Company’s operation in South Clinchfield, and with the railroads. A depot, station agent’s house, post office, school, and churches appeared alongside modest homes occupied by workers and their families.
Carbo was never as completely controlled by one company as some Appalachian coal camps. Its location between mines, railroad properties, and neighboring settlements gave it a somewhat different identity. Families could be connected to the same industrial economy while working for different employers. One man might work for a railroad, another at a preparation plant, and another in a mine near Wilder or Dumps Creek.
The trains also connected Carbo with the outside world. Coal moved out, but newspapers, manufactured goods, machinery, travelers, and new ideas came in. The railroad timetable governed work and commerce. Whistles, switching cars, coal dust, and the movement of loaded trains became part of the community’s daily life.
The Carbo Coal and Coke Company
One of the earliest major industrial developments associated with the Carbo name was not located in the center of the community itself. In 1917, the Carbo Coal and Coke Company established a plant at South Clinchfield along a branch of Dumps Creek.
The plant was built during the First World War to manufacture toluol, a coal-derived chemical used in the production of explosives. Coal was heated and processed so that valuable byproducts could be separated and refined. The operation placed the Carbo area within a much larger wartime supply network connecting Appalachian coal with American military and industrial production.
A small company settlement grew around the plant. South Clinchfield eventually included worker houses, a school, churches, stores, recreational spaces, and other businesses serving miners and factory employees. The wartime chemical plant closed around 1920, after the demand created by the conflict had fallen, but mining continued to support employment in the area for years afterward.
The plant’s brief life established a pattern that would recur in Carbo. Outside investors looked at the combination of coal, water, rail transportation, and land along Dumps Creek and saw the possibility of industrial development. Local residents saw employment and greater economic security. When national demand changed, however, the community was left to absorb the consequences.
The First Carbo Industrial Dream Fades
The closing of mines and industrial facilities weakened many Russell County coal communities during the years surrounding the Great Depression. Some company towns were largely dismantled after their mines closed. Others survived but lost stores, schools, railroad facilities, and population.
Carbo remained inhabited, but the forces that had created its early boom no longer operated at the same intensity. Automobiles allowed workers to travel farther from their jobs. Mine employment became less directly tied to company housing. Railroad operations changed. The compact coal camp became less necessary as families could live in older rural settlements and commute to mines or industrial sites.
The community’s buildings recorded the change. The depot, station facilities, businesses, churches, school, and worker houses represented an earlier period when employment, transportation, commerce, and domestic life had been concentrated within a small area.
Carbo did not disappear, but it became quieter. That changed dramatically during the 1950s.
The “Carbo Story” of 1951
In January 1951, the Lebanon News announced that the “Carbo Story” had developed into one of Russell County’s biggest news events. The reports concerned plans for a large industrial property associated with the former Carbo Coal Company operation and the possibility of renewed development near the old coal byproducts plant.
A second report in May referred directly to the old Carbo Coal Company coal byproducts plant. Engineering and industrial interests were examining the property, although surviving newspaper references do not establish that every proposal discussed in 1951 was completed.
The importance of those reports lies partly in what they reveal about local expectations. Carbo’s industrial possibilities had not been forgotten. The abandoned or underused properties along the railroads and river were still viewed as assets. The community remained close to large coal reserves and established transportation routes.
The proposals of 1951 also anticipated the much larger development that soon followed. Within five years, Carbo would become the construction site of a generating station valued at approximately $55 million.
A Power Plant at Kiser Bend
On May 16, 1956, more than 2,000 people gathered near Carbo for the ceremonial beginning of Appalachian Electric Power Company’s Clinch River Plant. Guests ate lunch at Cleveland High School before crossing a bridge over the Clinch River to the construction site.
The ceremony brought together executives from Appalachian Electric Power, American Gas and Electric, Clinchfield Coal Corporation, and the Norfolk and Western Railway. Political leaders included former Virginia governor John S. Battle, Congressman Pat Jennings, state officials, Russell County representatives, and Virginia senator Harry C. Stuart. A United States Army Reserve color guard raised the flag while the Lebanon High School band provided music.
The setting was symbolically important. Corporate executives stood beside local officials at a bend in the Clinch River while coal mines, railroad tracks, and the valley of Dumps Creek surrounded them. The ceremony presented the project as a partnership between electric power, coal production, transportation, government, and the people of Russell County.
Senator Stuart welcomed the companies to Russell County and connected the project to the region’s earlier history. He spoke of the Clinch River, Dumps Creek, long hunters, frontier settlement, and the generations who had occupied the surrounding valleys. His speech portrayed the plant as the next great chapter in a long story of people drawing opportunity from the land.
The project’s promoters emphasized its enormous scale. The first plan called for a two-unit station with a generating capacity of approximately 450,000 kilowatts. Construction employment was expected to rise above 1,000 workers at its peak. Company representatives estimated that the completed plant would consume approximately 1.3 million tons of coal each year.
Those figures carried tremendous meaning in a county dependent upon coal. The plant promised direct construction work, permanent utility jobs, railroad traffic, and a stable market for nearby mines. It also promised tax revenue that could support Russell County schools and public services.
The Building Boom
Construction transformed Carbo. Workers arrived from other communities and from outside Russell County. Houses, rooms, and temporary accommodations became difficult to find. Local stores and service businesses gained customers. Roads carried workers, machinery, and building materials toward the river.
The Clinch River Plant required far more than the construction of a powerhouse. The project involved bridges, transmission equipment, railroad connections, water systems, coal-handling machinery, ash-disposal facilities, offices, and enormous foundations capable of supporting generating equipment.
The first two generating units entered service in 1958. A third coal-fired unit followed in 1961, raising the station’s total coal-generating capacity to approximately 700 megawatts. The plant became one of the defining industrial landmarks of the Carbo area, its stacks and structures visible above the river valley.
The finished facility consumed coal at a rate that earlier Carbo industries could never have approached. Trains delivered fuel. Conveyors moved coal through the plant. Boilers transformed water into steam. Turbines produced electricity distributed across a multistate power system.
Carbo had entered the age of large-scale electric generation.
Coal, Railroads, and the Clinch River Plant
The power plant tied several parts of Russell County’s economy together. Coal companies supplied fuel. Railroads transported it. Utility employees operated and maintained the station. Contractors performed repairs and expansions. The plant’s tax payments helped finance county government and education.
The industrial partnership had been visible even during the 1956 groundbreaking. Visitors toured Clinchfield Coal Corporation’s new Moss No. 2 preparation plant, which was then under construction. Company materials described it as one of the industry’s most modern coal-washing, drying, and processing facilities. Some of its coal was expected to supply the Clinch River Plant, although another mine was planned to meet most of the station’s requirements.
The relationship between coal production and electric generation reshaped the landscape. Mine portals opened in surrounding ridges. Preparation plants cleaned and sorted coal. Waste piles accumulated. Railroad sidings and loading facilities expanded. Ash from the power plant was deposited in ponds near Dumps Creek and the Clinch River.
The plant’s Pond 1 began receiving coal-combustion residuals when generation started in 1958. Over time, the impoundment was enlarged and modified. It became part of the long environmental history created by coal-fired generation at Carbo.
Moss No. 3 and the Modern Coal Industry
Moss No. 3 became one of the largest and most important preparation plants in the Appalachian coalfields. The facility processed coal from surrounding Pittston and Clinchfield operations before the product entered regional and national markets.
A preparation plant did not mine coal. It received raw coal and separated usable material from rock and other impurities. The process involved conveyors, screens, crushers, washing equipment, storage areas, and loading facilities. The enormous plant represented the concentration and modernization of coal production during the postwar era.
Moss No. 3 also stood on one of the rare expanses of relatively level industrial land in the mountains. Railroad access, nearby natural resources, and earlier mining activity made the site valuable. Decades later, officials would continue to describe the same infrastructure as the property’s greatest advantage.
Yet Moss No. 3 became nationally important for something other than coal preparation. In 1989, it became the center of one of the most consequential American labor struggles of the late twentieth century.
The Pittston Coal Strike Comes to Carbo
The United Mine Workers of America began a strike against the Pittston Coal Company in April 1989. At the heart of the dispute were health-care and retirement benefits for working miners, retirees, widows, and disabled workers.
Pittston continued operating with replacement workers and the protection of state police. The union responded with picketing, road blockages, sit-down demonstrations, and other forms of organized civil disobedience. Thousands of miners and supporters were arrested during the dispute, while courts imposed enormous fines against the union.
For months, the struggle appeared to be settling into a costly stalemate. Pittston continued producing coal, and the union faced growing legal and financial pressure. Union leaders concluded that they needed an action dramatic enough to interrupt production and bring national attention back to the coalfields.
Their target was Moss No. 3.
The Occupation of Moss No. 3
On September 17, 1989, 99 striking miners and one minister entered and occupied the Moss No. 3 preparation plant. The operation had been planned secretly. The participants understood that they could be arrested, injured, or financially punished, but they committed themselves to nonviolent action.
The occupation stopped one of Pittston’s most important coal-processing operations. Outside the plant, miners and supporters gathered in solidarity. The number surrounding the facility grew into the thousands as news of the takeover spread.
Inside, the occupiers remained disciplined. They did not destroy the plant. Their goal was to halt production and demonstrate that the union retained the power to challenge Pittston despite injunctions, arrests, and court fines.
The occupation continued for several days. The miners finally walked out together on September 20. Although they did not permanently control the property, they had achieved their larger purpose. Moss No. 3 became a national symbol of resistance, and the strike regained momentum.
The Pittston dispute ended with a settlement in early 1990. The agreement restored important health and retirement protections, although the legal battles surrounding union fines continued. Historians of the strike generally identify the Moss No. 3 occupation as its decisive turning point.
For Carbo, the occupation added a new layer to the community’s history. The place once known for coal production and electric power was now associated with the defense of miners’ benefits and the continued importance of collective action in Appalachia.
Community Beyond the Industrial Sites
Carbo’s history cannot be reduced entirely to companies and machinery. Families created a community around the industrial economy. Churches provided worship, funerals, revivals, and social gatherings. Children attended local schools before consolidation carried them elsewhere. Residents worked together, married into neighboring families, and maintained ties even after employment took them away.
The Carbo Community Church remained an important local institution, appearing in newspaper announcements and community notices. Obituaries and family columns identified residents who worked for the railroads, mines, power plant, and other Russell County employers.
Community reunions later preserved those relationships. In September 1996, residents and former residents gathered for the tenth annual Carbo Reunion, sharing a covered-dish meal and renewing connections to a place that had changed significantly since the construction boom. The reunion continued into at least the following year.
The existence of those reunions is significant. Carbo persisted as a community identity even when many of its original institutions had disappeared. People who no longer lived there still considered themselves connected to the place.
The End of Coal-Fired Generation
For more than half a century, the Clinch River Plant burned coal. By the early twenty-first century, however, environmental regulations, aging equipment, and changes in energy markets placed pressure on older coal-fired stations.
Coal combustion at the plant ended in September 2015. Unit 3 was retired, while Units 1 and 2 were converted to burn natural gas. The converted units produced their first steam from natural gas during the transition period, marking the first time in the plant’s history that its generating future no longer depended upon coal.
The change did not erase the plant’s coal legacy. Ash ponds, industrial landfills, groundwater-monitoring wells, and other facilities remained. Pond 1, near the confluence of Dumps Creek and the Clinch River, had received coal ash from 1958 until 2015. Its formal closure was completed in 2018, followed by continued monitoring and corrective-action studies.
The converted station operated as a natural-gas facility with two generating units. In 2024, the Virginia State Corporation Commission accepted a projected retirement date of 2030 for depreciation purposes, extending the planning horizon beyond an earlier 2025 estimate.
Carbo had moved from the age of coal-fired electricity into a transitional period. The plant still generated power, but the fuel, workforce needs, environmental responsibilities, and expectations surrounding it had changed.
Reclaiming the Moss No. 3 Property
The Moss No. 3 preparation plant eventually closed and was demolished. Waste coal, disturbed ground, mine openings, and abandoned industrial structures remained across the property.
Virginia’s mined-land programs later supported reclamation intended to prepare part of the site for economic reuse. Workers removed waste material, graded the land, closed or addressed mine features, and revegetated former industrial areas. By 2022, state officials promoted the property as a potential development site because it retained railroad access, natural-gas infrastructure, and hundreds of acres of usable land.
The reclamation carried a familiar promise. Just as developers had looked at Carbo in 1917, 1951, and 1956, officials once again saw an opportunity to transform industrial land into employment and economic growth.
The property also remained a place of historical memory. To former miners and union families, Moss No. 3 was not simply an available tract of land. It was the site where miners had risked arrest and financial ruin to defend benefits earned through dangerous work.
The Moss No. 3 Landfill Dispute
That conflict between development and memory became visible again when a privately operated landfill was proposed for the old Moss No. 3 property.
In February 2024, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality received a notice announcing the intention to seek a solid-waste permit for a landfill at the former mine and preparation-plant site. Russell County opened a large public collection of project files containing correspondence, maps, presentations, proposed agreements, environmental reports, and citizen comments.
Opponents connected their campaign directly to the Pittston strike. Some adopted clothing and symbols recalling the camouflage worn by miners and supporters during the 1989 struggle. The United Mine Workers of America publicly opposed the project, describing Moss No. 3 as a pivotal site in the union’s history.
On June 10, 2024, the Russell County Board of Supervisors terminated negotiations over the proposed host agreement. Because such an agreement was necessary for the permitting process, state officials indicated that the landfill proposal would not proceed in its submitted form.
The dispute demonstrated that Carbo’s industrial properties could not be separated from the memories attached to them. Decisions about land use were also decisions about what parts of the community’s history deserved protection.
Why Carbo’s History Matters
Carbo offers a concentrated history of industrial Appalachia.
The community began as Kiser, a small settlement shaped by river valleys and family occupation. Railroads transformed it into a junction serving mines and coal-processing facilities. The Carbo Coal and Coke Company linked the area to First World War explosives production. The Clinch River Plant made Carbo part of a vast regional electric system. Moss No. 3 placed it at the center of a nationally important labor strike.
Each era promised that natural resources and industrial investment would provide lasting prosperity. Each also created new dependencies. Jobs depended upon distant markets, corporate decisions, railroad access, government policy, and the continued demand for coal.
The land preserved the consequences. Railroad grades, former mine portals, reclaimed waste piles, ash ponds, transmission lines, industrial roads, and the surviving power plant recorded more than a century of development.
Yet Carbo’s deepest continuity came from its people. Residents built churches, attended schools, worked dangerous jobs, supported one another during strikes, gathered for reunions, and continued to claim the community even after many of its public buildings and businesses disappeared.
Carbo may never have been a large town, but size is a poor measure of historical importance. Few communities of comparable size have been connected to so many defining chapters of Appalachian history.
At Kiser Bend, along Dumps Creek, and across the former Moss No. 3 property, the history of coal, railroads, electric power, organized labor, environmental change, and community memory remains written into the landscape.
Sources & Further Reading
Appalachian Electric Power Company. Clinch River Plant Groundbreaking Notebook. May 16, 1956. Reproduced in Jerry Couch, “Carbo Power Plant Groundbreaking Ceremony, May 16, 1956.” Clinch Valley Times, August 17, 2019. https://clinchvalleytimes.net/2019/08/17/carbo-power-plant-groundbreaking-ceremony-may-16-1956/
Stuart, Harry C. “Address at the Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Clinch River Plant at Carbo, Virginia.” May 16, 1956. Reproduced in the Appalachian Electric Power Company groundbreaking notebook. https://clinchvalleytimes.net/2019/08/17/carbo-power-plant-groundbreaking-ceremony-may-16-1956/
Lebanon News. January 4, 1951, 1. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=LN19510104.1.1
Lebanon News. May 3, 1951, 1. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=LN19510503.1.1
Clinch Valley News. January 27, 1956. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85034357/issues/
Lebanon News. August 29, 1957. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Franklin News-Post. September 12, 1957. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Amherst New Era-Progress. November 14, 1957. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. April 17, 1958. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Franklin News-Post. December 18, 1958. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. November 15, 1961. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. September 5, 1962. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. July 2, 1975. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. “Russell County Centennial Issue.” June 23, 1976. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. April 6, 1977. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. April 7, 1982. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/
Lebanon News. September 4, 1996, 2. Virginia Chronicle. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=LN19960904.1.2
Lebanon News. January 13, 2016. https://thelebanonnews.com/
Lebanon News. January 11, 2017. https://thelebanonnews.com/
André, Elizabeth M., and William H. Moore. Comprehensive Survey Report: Survey of Architectural Resources in Russell County, Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, 2009. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/SpecialCollections/RU-045_AH_survey_Russell_County_2009_WMCAR_report.pdf
Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions. Updated Assessment of Corrective Measures Report, Clinch River Pond 1. Prepared for American Electric Power Service Corporation. Lexington, KY, 2021. https://docs.aep.com/docs/requiredpostings/ccr/2021/8-26-2021/CR-P1-AssessmentofCorrectiveMeasures-08252021.pdf
American Electric Power Service Corporation. Semi-Annual Progress Report: Selection and Design of Corrective Remedy, Clinch River Ash Pond 1. July 2020. https://docs.aep.com/docs/requiredpostings/ccr/2020/7-20-2020/CR-P1-RemedySelectionDesignProgressRpt-072020.pdf
Appalachian Power Company. CCR Fugitive Dust Control Plan, Clinch River Plant. August 2019. https://docs.aep.com/docs/requiredpostings/ccr/2019/8-13-2019/CR-FugitiveDustPlan-080819.pdf
United States Environmental Protection Agency. Coal Combustion Residue Impoundment, Round 9 Dam Assessment Report: Clinch River Power Plant. February 17, 2011. https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/web/pdf/aep-clinch-river-final.pdf
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. “Carbo Landfill.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.deq.virginia.gov/news-info/shortcuts/topics-of-interest/carbo-landfill
Russell County, Virginia. “Moss III Project Files.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.russellcountyva.us/263/Moss-III-Project-Files
Russell County Board of Supervisors. “Resolution Terminating Negotiation of Proposed Host Agreement with NOVA.” June 10, 2024. In Moss III Project Files. https://www.russellcountyva.us/263/Moss-III-Project-Files
Virginia State Corporation Commission. Application of Appalachian Power Company for a 2024 Biennial Review of Its Base Rates, Final Order. Case No. PUR-2024-00024. November 20, 2024. https://www.scc.virginia.gov/docketsearch/DOCS/82my01%21.PDF
Bailey, Olivia. “Former Russell County Coal Preparation Plant Repurposed as Industrial Development Site.” WCYB, July 27, 2022. https://wcyb.com/news/local/former-russell-county-coal-preparation-plant-repurposed-as-industrial-development-site-carbo-moss-virginia-energy-will-clear-ernie-mcfadden-daniel-kestner-economic-mine
United Mine Workers of America. “UMWA Joins Fight Against Landfill.” March 12, 2024. https://umwa.org/news-media/news/umwa-joins-fight-against-landfill/
Gipe, Will. “The Fight for Justice in Virginia: Moss 3 and the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989.” Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review 3 (2014). https://vtuhr.org/articles/10.21061/vtuhr.v3i0.23
Brisbin, Richard A., Jr. A Strike Like No Other Strike: Law and Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989–1990. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/1048/strike-no-other-strike
Fisher, Stephen L., ed. Fighting Back in Appalachia: Traditions of Resistance and Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. https://books.google.com/books/about/Fighting_Back_in_Appalachia.html?id=RMOJ_0TCAwAC
Birecree, Adrienne M. “The Importance and Implications of Women’s Participation in the 1989–90 Pittston Coal Strike.” Journal of Economic Issues 30, no. 1 (March 1996): 187–210. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/mjei20/30/1
Beckwith, Karen. “Collective Identities of Class and Gender: Working-Class Women in the Pittston Coal Strike.” Political Psychology 19, no. 1 (1998): 147–167. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0162-895X.00097
Lewis, Anne, dir. Justice in the Coalfields. Whitesburg, KY: Appalshop, 1995. https://itvs.org/films/justice-in-the-coalfields/
Wentworth, Chester K. Geology and Coal Resources of Russell County, Virginia. Bulletin 22. Charlottesville: Virginia Geological Survey, 1922. https://www.energy.virginia.gov/commerce/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=2271
Tate, Leland Burdine. An Economic and Social Survey of Russell County. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1931. https://books.google.com/books/about/An_Economic_and_Social_Survey_of_Russell.html?id=GqbXAAAAMAAJ
Virginia Polytechnic Institute Engineering Extension Division and Reuben Lee Humbert. Industrial Survey, Russell County, Virginia. Blacksburg: Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1930. https://books.google.com/books/about/Industrial_Survey_Russell_County_Virgini.html?id=iCK-IkS36OkC
Evans, N. H., and K. W. Troensegaard. Geology of the St. Paul and Carbo Quadrangles, Virginia. Publication 106. Charlottesville: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, 1991. https://www.energy.virginia.gov/commerce/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=2261
Outerbridge, W. F. Landslides and Related Features of the Carbo, Virginia, Quadrangle. Open-File Report 82-422. Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, 1982. https://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1999/2329/mf2329_pamphlet.pdf
Brown, Andrew, and others. Coal Resources of Virginia. Circular 171. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1952. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/cir171
Meissner, Charles R., Jr., and Susan E. Heermann. Maps Showing Coal Resources of the Big A Mountain Quadrangle, Russell and Buchanan Counties, Virginia. Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-1439. Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, 1982. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mf1439
Archives of Appalachia. “Carolina, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railway, Engineering Department Collection, 1908–1978.” East Tennessee State University. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://archivesofappalachia.omeka.net/collections/show/175
Archives of Appalachia. “William Cary Hattan Collection, 1889–1940 and Undated.” East Tennessee State University. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://archivesofappalachia.omeka.net/collections/show/25
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Norfolk and Western Historical Photograph Collection.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/collections/show/332
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Norfolk & Western Railway Company Construction Site Photographs, 1967–1981.” Collection MS1997-027. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://aspace.lib.vt.edu/repositories/2/resources/2060
Virginia Museum of History & Culture. “Norfolk Southern Donates Norfolk and Western Railway Archives.” April 6, 2022. https://virginiahistory.org/norfolk-southern-donates-norfolk-and-western-railway-archives-750000-virginia-museum-history-culture
Library of Virginia. “Russell County Records on Microfilm.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Library of Virginia. “Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/node/42
Author Note: Carbo’s history reaches far beyond the remains of a small railroad and coal community along the Clinch River. Its power plant, Moss No. 3, and labor legacy reveal how national industry and community memory met in Russell County.