Appalachian Community Histories – Elkhorn, McDowell County: Crozer, Houston, Upland, and the Making of a Coal Camp
Elkhorn sits in the narrow valley of Elkhorn Creek in eastern McDowell County, West Virginia. Today it appears as a quiet collection of houses, roads, railroad tracks, and surviving buildings tucked against steep wooded hills. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, Elkhorn stood near the center of one of the most rapidly developing coal regions in the United States.
The history of the community is sometimes difficult to follow because the records do not always call it Elkhorn. Newspapers, maps, photographs, corporate documents, and mine reports may identify the same place as Crozer, Elkhorn Station, Crozer Bottom, or by the names of the Crozer, Houston, and Upland coal companies. Elkhorn Creek also gave its name to a much larger mining district that extended well beyond the immediate settlement. Understanding the town therefore requires following several company names through a landscape where the railroad, creek, mines, coke ovens, and workers’ houses were crowded into the same narrow valley.
The Society of Architectural Historians describes Elkhorn as one of McDowell County’s earliest coal camps. It emerged in 1888 as the railroad advanced down Elkhorn Creek. The settlement became a place where Pennsylvania capital, West Virginia coal, national railroad expansion, and an increasingly diverse industrial workforce came together.
The Railroad Reaches Elkhorn Creek
Before the railroad arrived, the mountains of eastern McDowell County were sparsely settled. Families lived on scattered farms, traveled along creek valleys, and used small roads and paths that were poorly suited for moving heavy machinery or commercial quantities of coal.
That changed when the Norfolk and Western Railway crossed Flat Top Mountain and extended its tracks into the Elkhorn Valley. The railroad reached the Elkhorn area during the second half of the 1880s, opening land that coal companies had already begun acquiring and surveying. For several years, Elkhorn stood at or near the end of the railway line before construction continued farther west toward Northfork, Welch, and eventually the Ohio River.
Elkhorn’s position at the frontier of railroad construction gave the community an importance that its modern size can easily conceal. It was not merely another station passed by an established railway. It was a temporary western terminus where railroad crews, engineers, merchants, miners, land agents, and investors gathered while the line pushed deeper into the mountains.
A photograph preserved by the West Virginia and Regional History Center shows Elkhorn Creek during the construction of the Norfolk and Western’s Ohio Extension around 1892. Snow covers the steep terrain while the railroad follows the valley through a landscape that had only recently become accessible to large scale industry. The Ohio Extension eventually connected the Pocahontas coalfield with the Ohio River, giving coal producers access to western markets as well as the Atlantic ports reached through Norfolk.
The Crozer Company Enters McDowell County
Among the investors who recognized the value of the Elkhorn Valley were members of the Crozer family of Pennsylvania. Their interests became associated with the Crozer Land Company, Crozer Land Association, and Crozer Coal and Coke Company.
The corporate agreement for the Crozer Coal and Coke Company was signed in June 1887. It authorized the company to mine and ship coal, manufacture and ship coke, and lease coal and mineral lands to other operators. The original subscribers committed $100,000 in capital and sought permission to increase that amount to $200,000. Samuel A. Crozer Jr., J. H. Bramwell, Samuel A. Crozer, John Crozer, and T. L. Henritze appeared among the original shareholders. The company was formally declared a West Virginia corporation on July 29, 1887.
This arrangement reflected the complicated structure of the early Pocahontas coalfield. Land companies acquired enormous mineral holdings but did not necessarily mine all the coal themselves. Instead, they leased tracts to operating companies that supplied workers, machinery, mine openings, tipples, houses, and coke ovens.
A federal census study published in 1892 reported that the Flat Top Coal Land Association and the Crozer Land Company controlled the coal lands being worked in the region in 1889. The Crozer Land Company alone owned approximately 18,000 acres in West Virginia. Nine leases were active or being developed in the Elkhorn district, covering nearly 10,000 acres of coal land. The leases required operators not only to mine coal but also to construct coke ovens.
Elkhorn was therefore more than a mining camp belonging to a single company. It was also the headquarters of a landholding and leasing system that shaped development along the creek.
Crozer, Houston, and Upland
Three major companies became closely connected with Elkhorn. Crozer Coal and Coke Company was established in 1887, Houston Coal and Coke Company followed during the same period, and Upland Coal and Coke Company began operations around 1890. All three worked within the larger network of Crozer landholdings and railroad access.
A contemporary report published by the Roanoke Daily Times in January 1890 listed several companies operating along the advancing Norfolk and Western line. The report associated Crozer and Houston with Elkhorn and gave employment figures for companies throughout the surrounding coalfield. Its listing reveals how quickly the valley had changed. Within only a few years, a remote mountain settlement had become part of a chain of operating mines, coke plants, railroad sidings, and industrial camps.
The companies worked the thick Pocahontas coal seam that made the region famous. Pocahontas coal burned with relatively little smoke and contained qualities desirable to railroads, steel producers, foundries, and naval customers. Much of the slack coal, the smaller fragments produced during mining and preparation, could be transformed into coke for use in iron and steel furnaces.
By the 1890s, Elkhorn contained mine openings, tipples, tracks, coke ovens, company houses, stores, offices, and buildings needed to support a permanent workforce. The settlement developed in sections associated with the different companies, which helps explain why historical photographs and family records sometimes describe residents as living at Crozer or Houston rather than simply at Elkhorn.
Fire in the Coke Ovens
Coke ovens became one of the most visible features of Elkhorn’s industrial landscape. These stone ovens were built in long rows beside the railroad and near the mines. Workers loaded them with coal, sealed much of the opening, and allowed the coal to burn under controlled conditions. The process drove away gases and impurities, leaving a hard carbon rich fuel used in blast furnaces.
The federal census report on coke production described extraordinary growth across the Pocahontas Flat Top field. In 1883, the district contained about 200 coke ovens. By 1889, approximately 1,833 ovens had been built and 631 more were under construction. The report counted 533 people employed in the district’s coke works during 1889 and recorded nearly $150,000 in wages. It also documented the growing demand for Pocahontas coke in Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and other southern industrial markets.
Elkhorn participated directly in that expansion. The 1890 census tables listed both the Crozer Coal and Coke Company and Houston Coal and Coke Company among the operators building or planning ovens in the Elkhorn district. The concentration of mines and ovens meant that smoke, heat, coal dust, locomotive noise, and industrial activity surrounded the community’s houses.
A photograph preserved at West Virginia University shows a surviving row of coke ovens at Elkhorn around 1930. The arched openings stand beside the railroad at the foot of a wooded hillside. By then the ovens appear inactive, but their location demonstrates how closely industrial production was pressed against the transportation corridor and the residential community.
The McDowell Progress Records a New Community
Elkhorn’s early importance can also be measured by the presence of a newspaper. The McDowell Progress, one of the county’s earliest newspapers, was published at Elkhorn during the period when the community stood near the western edge of railroad development.
The Library of Congress preserves digitized issues from March 1891. Their mastheads identify Elkhorn as the place of publication, providing direct evidence that the settlement had already become a center for communication, business, politics, and public life.
A newspaper required readers, advertisers, merchants, transportation, and a steady flow of information. Its presence suggests that Elkhorn was not simply a temporary collection of mine shacks. It had become a regional gathering place where residents could read about company affairs, railroad construction, elections, court proceedings, deaths, marriages, and businesses operating throughout McDowell County.
The survival of the McDowell Progress is especially valuable because so much of early Elkhorn’s history is otherwise preserved through corporate documents. Newspapers offer glimpses of residents who rarely appeared in company reports, including merchants, teachers, ministers, laborers, widows, children, and families trying to establish permanent lives in a rapidly changing coalfield.
Workers Arrive from Across the South and Europe
The native population of McDowell County could not provide enough workers for the expanding mines. Coal operators recruited experienced miners from Pennsylvania and other established coal regions. They also drew African American workers from Virginia and the broader South, along with immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.
The transformation of McDowell County was dramatic. Its population grew from 3,076 in 1880 to 7,300 in 1890, 18,747 in 1900, and 47,856 in 1910. The state mine department recorded no miners in the county in 1888, followed by 740 in 1889 and 1,347 in 1890. Those figures reveal how quickly the railroad and coal industry reordered the county.
Elkhorn became part of this migration. Miners and their families arrived with different languages, religious traditions, foodways, music, and ideas about community. Workers labored together underground, but company housing and public institutions often reflected divisions based on occupation, status, race, and ethnicity.
The arrangement of houses within Elkhorn displayed the hierarchy of the company town. Managers and senior officials occupied larger homes with more land and architectural detail. Foremen and skilled employees received another class of housing. Rank and file miners lived in more standardized company houses placed closer to the tracks, mine entrances, and industrial buildings.
Those distinctions remain visible in the surviving landscape. The community contains examples ranging from workers’ houses to the elaborate residence built for coal operator John J. Lincoln. The variety allows Elkhorn to preserve not only the appearance of a coal camp, but also the social order that governed it.
John J. Lincoln and the Building of Elkhorn
John J. Lincoln became one of the central figures in Elkhorn’s development. A Pennsylvania native and engineering graduate of Lehigh University, Lincoln came to southern West Virginia during the opening of the Pocahontas coalfield. He became chief engineer and superintendent of the Crozer Land Association, which maintained its headquarters at Elkhorn.
When Lincoln arrived, the community consisted of a cluster of houses and company buildings constructed to shelter workers. Under his management, Elkhorn expanded into a thriving settlement supporting three coal companies. Lincoln eventually became vice president of the Crozer Land Association and general manager of the Crozer, Upland, and Page coal companies. His business interests also connected him to banking, real estate, telephone service, and the Pocahontas Operators Association.
Lincoln occupied an unusual position in the community. He represented the company and the outside capital controlling the mines, but he also lived in Elkhorn and became involved in its schools, churches, public services, and cultural life.
In 1899, Lincoln built a large house for his new wife. The frame residence stood on spacious grounds near Elkhorn Creek and featured a multigabled roof, wraparound porch, stone foundation, and half timber decoration. Smaller buildings behind the residence provided housing for domestic employees and a schoolroom for the children of managers.
The house provided a sharp contrast with the standardized dwellings occupied by miners. It demonstrated Lincoln’s wealth and authority, but it also placed the operator physically within the community rather than on a distant estate.
The John J. Lincoln House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. It survives as one of the most important remaining coal operator residences in southern West Virginia and as evidence of the people who managed the industrial system that shaped Elkhorn.
Churches, Schools, and the Elkhorn Orchestra
Company towns were built to produce coal, but they could not survive without institutions that supported family and community life. Elkhorn developed churches, schools, stores, recreational activities, and other services intended to create a stable workforce.
Lincoln served as president of the Elkhorn District Board of Education and supported improvements to local schools. Historical accounts also credit him with providing comfortable housing, preserving trees within the community, and helping construct churches for residents of different religious backgrounds.
One congregation served Lincoln’s own Quaker tradition. Another church was constructed for immigrants from eastern Europe. St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church, later known as Holy Dormition Church or St. Mary Orthodox Church, was built between 1912 and 1914. Its gilded onion dome and Eastern cross created one of the most distinctive architectural landmarks in the southern West Virginia coalfields.
The church reveals more than a company effort at religious accommodation. It demonstrates that immigrants established lasting communities and carried their spiritual traditions into the mountains. The dome above Elkhorn became a visible sign that the coalfield’s population had connections reaching far beyond West Virginia.
Elkhorn also supported an orchestra. National Register research records that the Elkhorn Orchestra performed concerts on the lawn of the Lincoln residence. Such events complicate the common image of a coal camp as nothing more than a grim collection of houses surrounding a mine. Life at Elkhorn included music, worship, education, celebrations, family gatherings, and efforts to create normalcy amid the dangers and demands of industrial labor.
Life Beside the Railroad and Mine
Daily life in Elkhorn was shaped by geography. The steep mountains left little level ground, forcing houses, railroad tracks, roads, tipples, ovens, and commercial buildings into the narrow creek bottom.
Residents lived close to the machinery that supported the mines. Trains passed near homes. Coal cars moved along sidings. Mine whistles regulated working hours. Smoke and gas rose from coke ovens. Floodwater could surge through the same valley occupied by the railroad and company houses.
An elevated photograph of Elkhorn around 1930 shows the Crozer Coal and Coke Company, railroad cars, tracks, company buildings, and houses crowded together in the valley. The image captures the physical unity of workplace and community. There was no clear separation between the industrial plant and the town because Elkhorn existed to serve the mines.
The mines themselves required dangerous physical labor. Men drilled coal faces, loaded mine cars, maintained tracks, operated cutting machines, handled explosives, and worked beneath layers of rock that could collapse without warning. Other residents worked around the tipples, ovens, railroad yards, stores, offices, schools, and homes.
Women’s paid and unpaid labor also sustained the community. They raised children, prepared food, washed coal stained clothing, kept gardens, took in boarders, cared for injured relatives, worked as domestic employees, and participated in churches and neighborhood networks. Their work seldom appeared in mine production reports, but the company town could not have functioned without it.
The Companies Disappear
The original companies that created Elkhorn did not last forever. Coal markets changed, coke production declined, mines were exhausted or consolidated, and larger corporations absorbed many of the smaller companies that had opened the Pocahontas field.
Professional coal heritage research concludes that the Crozer, Houston, and Upland companies had ceased operations by 1943. Some coal production associated with Elkhorn continued beyond the disappearance of those original firms, but mining in the immediate community ended during the early 1950s.
The closing of the mines removed the economic reason for which the community had been built. Jobs disappeared, families moved away, company buildings lost their original purposes, and some houses were abandoned or demolished. The railroad remained, but it no longer delivered the constant activity that had once defined daily life.
Elkhorn’s decline reflected a broader transformation across McDowell County. Mechanization reduced the number of miners needed underground. Smaller operations closed or consolidated. Young residents left in search of work. Commercial districts weakened as the population fell.
Yet Elkhorn did not vanish completely. Families continued living there, maintaining houses, roads, churches, and memories that connected the quiet community with its industrial past.
What Survives at Elkhorn
Elkhorn retains an unusual collection of structures from the company town era. Surviving miners’ houses preserve the standardized forms once repeated throughout the valley. The John J. Lincoln House represents the opposite end of the town’s social and architectural hierarchy. St. Mary Orthodox Church records the presence of eastern European immigrants and their descendants.
Railroad tracks still follow the route that created the community. Foundations and industrial remnants mark places where mine buildings and tipples once stood. Historic photographs preserve coke ovens, machinery, miners, company houses, and the crowded landscape before much of it disappeared.
The McDowell County Coal Heritage Survey concluded that Elkhorn remains one of southern West Virginia’s most intact and picturesque coal communities. Researchers considered the settlement eligible for recognition as a historic district because of its architecture, commercial history, and connection with John J. Lincoln.
The survival of Elkhorn is important because many McDowell County coal camps have lost nearly all of their original buildings. Company stores have collapsed or been demolished. Rows of houses have disappeared. Mine portals have been sealed, and former industrial sites have returned to forest.
At Elkhorn, enough remains to read the outline of the former town. The operator’s residence, workers’ houses, church, railroad, creek, and surrounding mountains still reveal how a coal camp was organized and how closely every part of life was tied to the industry.
Why Elkhorn’s History Matters
Elkhorn tells the story of how industrial Appalachia was created. It began with coal beneath the mountains, but coal alone could not build a town. Development required land companies, investors, engineers, railroads, miners, merchants, families, churches, schools, and laborers willing to enter the mines.
The community also reveals the reach of outside capital. Pennsylvania investors acquired land in southern West Virginia, organized corporations, leased mineral tracts, and created settlements around industrial production. The coal left Elkhorn by rail and entered national and international markets, while the risks of mining, pollution, and economic dependence remained in the valley.
Elkhorn’s churches and houses preserve another part of the story. They show how African American migrants, European immigrants, native Appalachian families, managers, miners, and railroad workers inhabited the same narrow landscape while often experiencing the company town from very different social positions.
The community’s surviving buildings make those relationships visible. The Lincoln House reflects managerial authority and prosperity. The miners’ houses represent the labor force on which that prosperity depended. The Orthodox church represents immigrant persistence. The railroad represents connection to a larger industrial world.
Modern Elkhorn is quieter than the place shown in early photographs. The coke ovens no longer burn through the night, and the mine whistles no longer call shifts underground. Yet the town remains one of the clearest surviving records of the first great period of coal development in McDowell County.
Its history is written in the creek, the railroad grade, the old houses, the church dome, and the mountains that once echoed with trains and machinery. Elkhorn stands as evidence that even a small Appalachian community could occupy an important place in the industrial history of the United States.
Sources & Further Reading
Library of Congress. “McDowell Progress (Elkhorn, W. Va.) 1883–????.” Chronicling America. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016270576/
McDowell Progress (Elkhorn, WV), March 7, 1891. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/2016270576/1891-03-07/ed-1/?sp=1&st=text
McDowell Progress (Elkhorn, WV), March 14, 1891. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/2016270576/1891-03-14/ed-1/
McDowell Progress (Elkhorn, WV), March 21, 1891. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/2016270576/1891-03-21/ed-1/
Roanoke Daily Times (Roanoke, VA), January 15, 1890. Virginia Chronicle, Library of Virginia. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=RDT18900115.1.1
West Virginia. Acts of the Legislature of West Virginia at Its Twenty-First Regular Session, Commencing January 9, 1889. Charleston, WV: Moses W. Donnally, Public Printer, 1889. https://www.wvlegislature.gov/legisdocs/publications/acts/Acts_1889.pdf
United States Census Office. Manufactures: Production of Coke, Pocahontas Flat-Top Field. Census Bulletin No. 200. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1892. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/bulletins/manufacturing/200-manufactures-production-of-coke.pdf
Historical Society of Pennsylvania. “Brown Family Collection, 1806–2020.” Collection 4341. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/b/Brown4341.html
Norfolk and Western Railway. “Right of Way Required for Proposed Station Grounds through Lands of Crozer Land Company.” Norfolk and Western Historical Society Archives. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=196367
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Crozer Coal and Coke Co., Elkhorn, West Virginia.” Norfolk and Western Historical Photograph Collection. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=46&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Coal+Companies%2C+Mines%2C+Tipples&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Pocahontas Mines Collection, 1883–1997.” Ms.2004.002. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=oai%2FVT%2Frepositories_2_resources_3408.xml
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Crozer Company and Town of Elkhorn, W. Va.” West Virginia History OnView. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/038964
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Coke Ovens in Elkhorn, W. Va.” West Virginia History OnView. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/038960
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Winter View of Elkhorn Creek, McDowell County, W. Va.” West Virginia History OnView. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/039273
Library of Congress. “Elkhorn, West Virginia Photographs.” Carol M. Highsmith Archive. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/highsm/index/places/w/
United States National Archives and Records Administration. “Census Records.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census
United States National Archives and Records Administration. “Enumeration District Maps and Descriptions.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/finding-aids
West Virginia Archives and History. “West Virginia Vital Research Records.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvculture.org/vital-records-research/
United States Geological Survey. “TopoView: Historical Topographic Map Collection.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
United States Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” The National Map. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names
Campbell, Marius R. Description of the Raleigh Quadrangle, West Virginia. Geologic Atlas of the United States, Folio 77. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1902. https://pubs.usgs.gov/gf/077/text.pdf
Kozar, Mark D., Kurt J. McCoy, James Q. Britton, and Bascombe M. Blake Jr. Hydrogeology, Groundwater Flow, and Groundwater Quality of an Abandoned Underground Coal-Mine Aquifer, Elkhorn Area, West Virginia. Morgantown: West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, 2017. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70190183
McAdoo, Mitchell A., and Mark D. Kozar. Groundwater-Quality Data Associated with Abandoned Underground Coal Mine Aquifers in West Virginia, 1973–2016: Compilation of Existing Data from Multiple Sources. U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 1069. Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, 2017. https://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/1069/ds1069.pdf
Sone, Stacy. “John J. Lincoln House.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Charleston: West Virginia Division of Culture and History, 1992. https://wvculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/John-lincoln-house.pdf
Sone, Stacy. “Coal Company Stores in McDowell County.” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form. Charleston: West Virginia Division of Culture and History, 1992. https://wvculture.org/multiple-property-cover-documents/
Sone, Stacy. “Houston Coal Company Store.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Charleston: West Virginia Division of Culture and History, 1992. https://wvculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Houston-coal-company-store.pdf
National Coal Heritage Area. Coal Heritage Survey Update Final Report: McDowell County, West Virginia. Washington, DC: National Park Service. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/national-coal/survey.pdf
Chambers, S. Allen Jr. “Elkhorn.” SAH Archipedia. Charlottesville: Society of Architectural Historians and University of Virginia Press. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://sah-archipedia.org/essays/WV-01-0003-0002-0003
Chambers, S. Allen Jr. “John J. Lincoln House.” SAH Archipedia. Charlottesville: Society of Architectural Historians and University of Virginia Press. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-MD4
Chambers, S. Allen Jr. “St. Mary Orthodox Church.” SAH Archipedia. Charlottesville: Society of Architectural Historians and University of Virginia Press. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-MD5
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “McDowell County Histories.” A&M 3244. West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1543
West Virginia and Regional History Center. “William Archer, Journalist, Research Papers Regarding McDowell and Mercer Counties.” West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/96419
Corbin, David Alan. Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880–1922. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p007669
Trotter, Joe William Jr. Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915–32. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p009407
Williams, John Alexander. West Virginia and the Captains of Industry. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2003. https://wvupressonline.com/node/132
Tams, W. P. Jr. The Smokeless Coal Fields of West Virginia: A Brief History. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1963. https://archive.org/search?query=%22The+Smokeless+Coal+Fields+of+West+Virginia%22
Author Note: Elkhorn’s history survives under several names, including Crozer, Houston, Upland, Elkhorn Station, and the larger Elkhorn Creek district. This article brings those scattered company, railroad, newspaper, photographic, and government records together to recover the story of one of McDowell County’s earliest coal communities.