Appalachian History Series – Houston Coal Company Store: Carswell Hollow’s Company Town Front Porch
If you come into Kimball along U.S. 52, the coal camp at Carswell does not look like much at first glance. The hollow narrows quickly, the creek runs tight against the road, and the Norfolk Southern tracks hug the opposite bank. Then a long brick building appears on the north side of the highway, sitting back behind a stone wall and a broad lawn, its green tile roof and arched windows facing the road like a small courthouse that lost its town.
This is the Houston Coal Company Store, later known as the Koppers Store, the last major company store left from the Elkhorn Creek corridor. Built in the early 1920s for the Houston Coal and Coke interests, it was the front porch of Carswell Hollow, where miners collected their pay, bought their groceries on credit, picked up mail, and waited to hear whether the mine would work the next day. Today it survives as one of the most intact coal company stores in McDowell County and one of the few that has been pulled back from the edge of collapse.
From Philadelphia capital to Elkhorn Creek
The story behind that brick facade begins far from Carswell Hollow. In the late nineteenth century a group of Pennsylvania iron and coal men, the Houston and Crozer families, began buying into the rich Pocahontas No. 3 coal seam along the Virginia and West Virginia border. The seam covered roughly nine hundred square miles across Mercer, Wyoming, and McDowell counties in West Virginia and neighboring Tazewell County, Virginia. Its low smoke, high carbon coal quickly became the preferred fuel for railroads, steel mills, and eventually the United States Navy.
The Norfolk and Western Railway, reorganized in the 1880s to reach this seam, pushed its Pocahontas Division westward into the mountains. New towns followed the tracks. Bluefield, Bramwell, Keystone, and a chain of smaller camps up Elkhorn Creek grew where sidings, tipples, and land companies made it profitable to sink shafts and mines.
The Brown family papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania show how the Houston interests fit into that larger picture. Charles B. Houston and his brothers Thomas and David invested in coal and iron ventures across the region and appear repeatedly in leases and corporate papers tied to McDowell County. Among those documents is a thirty year lease between the Crozer Land Company and the Houston Coal and Coke Company in McDowell County, along with later financial statements and scrapbooks that document operations at Elkhorn.
By the early twentieth century, Crozer Land Company was leasing tracts along Elkhorn Creek to several closely linked firms, including the Crozer Coal and Coke Company, Houston Coal and Coke Company, and Upland Coal and Coke Company. Modern summaries of the coal camps note that these companies were chartered by experienced Pennsylvania operators who came south to mine the Pocahontas No. 3 seam along Elkhorn Creek, supplying smokeless coal to steel producers and the Navy.
Houston’s core camp at Elkhorn sat a little upstream from where Kimball would later be platted, but the company’s ambitions soon extended down the line. In a promotional booklet titled Through the Coal Fields, published by the Pocahontas Operators Association in the 1920s, the town of Kimball was described as having been laid out and developed by the Houston Coal Company, a reminder that the town on the main line and the camps up Carswell Hollow were both products of the same outside capital.
Building a coal camp at Carswell Hollow
Carswell Hollow itself was a side valley off Elkhorn Creek, running north from the main line at Kimball. According to the Coal Heritage Survey Update prepared for McDowell County, the Houston Collieries Company established a coal camp there in 1915. The company built houses for miners and mine supervisors along the hollow and at its mouth, and the company president, David E. Houston, constructed his own residence on a prominent knoll above the road, using the same brick and tile palette that would soon appear in the store across from it.
The mine workings at Carswell tapped the same Pocahontas No. 3 seam that made nearby camps famous. During the 1910s and 1920s, McDowell County’s coal economy exploded in scale. By 1923 there were more than eighty coal companies operating roughly one hundred forty mines in the county, and production peaked near twenty nine million tons in 1942. The county’s population climbed toward one hundred thousand by mid century, with coal camps and rail towns like Kimball strung along the Tug Fork and its tributaries.
Carswell and Kimball fit this pattern. The main line and U.S. 52 carried coal and commerce along Elkhorn Creek, while the hollow held the mine, rows of company houses, and a second, smaller company store farther up the valley. The store at the mouth of the hollow, where Carswell Hollow Road meets Route 52, became the more visible face of the operation: a place where miners and their families stepped out of a narrow camp and into a building designed to look modern, permanent, and prosperous.
A showpiece in brick and tile
Architectural historians have paid close attention to the Houston Coal Company Store because it looks so unlike the plain frame stores that appear in many coalfield photographs. The National Register of Historic Places nomination, prepared in 1991 by Stacy Sone of the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, describes a one story brick building from the early 1920s with a long, low facade, a shallow hipped roof of green clay tile, and a series of tall round arched windows that bring light deep into the sales floor. The plan is essentially L shaped, with projecting wings at each end and a recessed porch across the center that originally framed the main doors.
SAH Archipedia, which pairs the store with the Houston house on the knoll above it, credits Cincinnati architect E. C. Burroughs with designing both structures. The house is described as drawing more explicitly from Tudor Revival, while the store uses a simplified Italian Renaissance vocabulary in its low roof, arched fenestration, and careful symmetry. Together, the two buildings read like a matched set across Carswell Hollow Road: the owner’s residence elevated above the company town, the store sitting closer to the tracks and highway where traffic flowed.
Clio’s entry on the building emphasizes how unusual this kind of showpiece architecture was in the coalfields. Many companies built stores that looked like oversized barns or warehouses. The Houston store, by contrast, presented an image of stability and taste. Clio notes its near perfect symmetry, the round arches repeated across the facade, and a rear arcade that once sheltered loading and circulation.
Set against the steep wall of the hollow, the store also stood slightly apart from the rest of Carswell. Town of Kimball materials point out that it was built along Route 52 at the edge of the hollow rather than in the geographic center of the camp, a decision that made it more accessible to travelers and more visible to anyone passing through Kimball.
Life on Houston credit
For miners and their families, the architecture was only one part of the story. Company stores existed to tie labor, land, and capital together through credit. When the Houston Collieries Company opened Carswell, workers often received a portion of their pay in scrip redeemable only at company outlets. One surviving token catalog entry for Houston Collieries lists a nickel plated brass piece only eighteen millimeters across, stamped “HOUSTON COLLIERIES CO. / 1 / CARSWELL” on one side and “IN TRADE” on the other, manufactured by the Insley Credit System of Dayton, Ohio.
That tiny coin stands in for countless transactions that never showed up in corporate ledgers. A family might walk from a four room company house up the hollow to the store to buy flour, beans, or shoes. A clerk at one of the long counters would record the sale against the miner’s account, subtracting it from future pay. On payday the same building became a pay station, the company office tucked behind the retail space handling wage envelopes, deductions, and disputes.
The store also concentrated services that made Carswell feel like a town. The Kimball visitor information page, based on the text of a roadside marker, notes that the building housed a post office, payroll office, and retail store. It doubled as a gathering place where people compared shift lists, read bulletin boards, and lingered on the steps after church or ball games.
Fire insurance maps and surveys of McDowell County’s coal heritage show how such stores anchored entire landscapes. Sanborn maps for Kimball and the Elkhorn corridor chart the footprint of the Houston store, the railroad siding behind it, the road in front, and the surrounding dwellings and service buildings. The Coal Heritage Survey notes that both the store and the Houston house were singled out in 2016 as architecturally significant remnants of a camp whose more modest houses had largely disappeared or been altered.
Disaster in the Carswell workings
The prosperity symbolized by the tile roof and broad lawn always depended on what happened in the mine underground. Carswell’s history included two fatal explosions that tied the Houston and Koppers eras together and that still echo in regional memory.
State mine disaster records maintained by the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training list a July 18, 1919 explosion at the Carswell mine operated by the Houston Collieries Company. The entry notes that seven miners were killed in that accident, which struck only a few years after the camp opened.
By 1941 ownership of the Carswell operation had shifted to the Koppers Coal Company, but the seam and the basic layout of the workings remained largely the same. In the early hours of January 22, 1941, an explosion ripped through part of the mine, killing four men outright and injuring fourteen others. Contemporary newspaper accounts and a Bureau of Mines investigation describe a mostly mechanized shaft mine that had produced more than a million tons of coal in the previous two years. Dust, gas, and an ignition source almost certainly combined to produce the blast. Over the next day, one of the injured miners died in a Welch hospital, bringing the death toll to five, and later summaries list a total of six fatalities tied to the event.
The Bureau of Mines report by W. J. Pene and F. E. Griffith, prepared in the days after the disaster, includes maps, cross sections, and air sample tables that show Carswell as a complex modern mine. It also details the way air moved, where dust samples were collected, and how investigators believed the flame traveled. These tables make it clear that the mine had been producing heavily and that dust had accumulated in areas that were not sufficiently rock dusted, a pattern that repeated across many mid twentieth century coal disasters.
Above ground, the news would have reached the Houston store quickly. Families gathered at the building and along the road to wait for word of rescue attempts, as they did at other coal camps across the southern West Virginia fields. Today a roadside marker for the Carswell Mining Complex stands near the store’s parking lot. It reminds visitors that the building once served first the Houston Coal Company and later Koppers, and that the camp’s quiet hollow was the site of two deadly explosions.
From Houston to Koppers to Kimball
Corporate ownership of Carswell followed the broader consolidation of the Pocahontas coalfield. Houston’s Elkhorn interests, like those of many smaller firms, were eventually absorbed by larger companies. Town of Kimball materials note that David Houston sold the company store and other assets to Koppers Coal Company of Pittsburgh, which operated the store between roughly 1930 and 1960.
Carswell Hollow’s later history mirrors the rise and fall of McDowell County’s coal economy. As postwar mechanization and market shifts reduced labor needs, mines closed or were leased out. The Coal Heritage Survey reports that after Koppers, the Carswell mine was leased to the Peerless Coal and Coke Company in 1953, but no further mining occurred there. By the late twentieth century, the camp’s population had thinned, many houses were gone or heavily altered, and the store had cycled through a series of secondary uses. It served as a dairy, housed a construction company, and later held offices for McDowell County Emergency Services before sitting vacant for years.
As the county’s coal employment collapsed, so did its population. The Coal Heritage Survey notes that McDowell County’s population fell from nearly one hundred thousand in 1950 to about twenty thousand in the 2010s, with coal production shrinking from tens of millions of tons at mid century to fewer than three million tons in 2015.
In that context, the survival of the Houston store at all is striking. Many comparable company stores in McDowell were demolished or drastically altered. The National Register nomination for the “Coal Company Stores in McDowell County” multiple property listing, along with the specific nomination for the Houston store, identifies it as the most intact coal company store in the county. Clio’s entry calls it one of the most unaltered remaining examples in southern West Virginia.
Restoration and a new life for a company store
By the early twenty first century, the Houston store had reached a familiar crossroads. Its tile roof leaked, windows were deteriorating, and the building stood empty along a highway in a county with limited resources. Yet its architectural and historical importance drew attention from preservationists. The store’s 1992 listing on the National Register of Historic Places laid groundwork for later grants. The National Coal Heritage Area, the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, and the town of Kimball all became involved in efforts to stabilize and restore the structure.
Town of Kimball summaries emphasize that the building is now owned by the municipality and has been rehabilitated as a community space, with plans for museum exhibits and events that interpret the Carswell camp and McDowell County coal history. The same lawn that once framed a corporate showpiece now serves as a gathering space for residents and visitors.
The store also sits within a growing network of heritage tourism efforts that mix ATV trail riders, genealogists, and former residents returning to see what is left of their home places. The Coal Heritage Survey explicitly notes that integrating cultural resource tourism with recreational visitors may be essential for preserving coal related historic resources in McDowell County, and the Houston store is often cited as one of the best surviving examples of a coal company retail and office complex.
Reading the record from Carswell
One of the strengths of the Houston story is the variety of sources that survive. For anyone tracing family roots or studying company towns, Carswell and Kimball offer a surprisingly rich paper trail.
On the ground, the architecture itself is a primary source. The details described in the National Register nomination and by SAH Archipedia, from the brickwork to the roof tiles and the relationship between store and house, document how corporate leaders wanted to present themselves to a remote Appalachian community.
In print and manuscript collections, the Brown family papers in Philadelphia preserve correspondence, leases, and financial statements from the Houston Coal and Coke Company, highlighting how a network of investors tied McDowell County to banks and steel mills far away.
Public records and technical reports fill in the industrial side of the story. The Coal Heritage Survey Update for McDowell County places Carswell within a county wide boom and decline. Bureau of Mines reports and the U.S. Mine Disasters database record the Carswell explosions in clinical detail, while contemporary newspapers convey the shock in Welch and other coal towns.
Maps and tokens add tactile evidence. Sanborn fire insurance maps, USGS topographic sheets, and rail diagrams show how closely the hollow, the store, and the tracks were tied together. The surviving “HOUSTON COLLIERIES CO. / CARSWELL” scrip token makes the credit system tangible, a small metal disc that once stood between a miner’s labor and his family’s pantry.
Taken together, these sources tell a story that is larger than a single building. The Houston Coal Company Store at Carswell Hollow represents a moment when distant capital, a famous coal seam, railroad expansion, and Appalachian labor combined to create a dense industrial landscape along Elkhorn Creek. Its tile roof and arched windows survive long after the tipple and many of the houses have gone. To stand on its front steps today is to look out over a hollow where miners once rushed to the mine on dark winter mornings and to recognize how much of that world still shapes McDowell County, even in an era when coal no longer dominates the local economy.
Sources & Further Reading
Sone, Stacy. Houston Coal Company Store. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Charleston: West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, December 16, 1991. National Park Service. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/778bda8a-ef47-4347-911c-608d01ce55bb/
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Coal Company Stores in McDowell County Multiple Property Submission. National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheets. 1991–92. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500726_text
Aurora Research Associates, LLC. Coal Heritage Survey Update Final Report, McDowell County, West Virginia. Charleston: West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, November 15, 2018. NPS History. https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/national-coal/survey.pdf
Chambers, S. Allen Jr. “Houston Coal Company Store and Houston House.” In SAH Archipedia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012–. http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-MD8
“Houston Coal Company Store.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Last modified 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Coal_Company_Store
“Houston Coal Company Store / Koppers Store.” Clio: Your Guide to History. Entry published October 1, 2020. https://theclio.com/entry/44193
National Park Service. “Houston Coal Company Store.” National Register of Historic Places Digital Assets. NPS Focus. https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/73ce9414-9fa6-4a8f-a978-4f0f7258e9c4/
National Coal Heritage Area Authority. “Houston Coal Company Store Restoration Celebration.” Event flyer, February 25, 2016. https://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2016/20160309_Houston_Store_invite.pdf
“Carswell Mining Complex.” The Historical Marker Database. Accessed 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=178659
“Carswell, West Virginia.” Grokipedia. Accessed 2026. https://grokipedia.com/page/carswell_west_virginia
“Houston Coal Company Store.” Grokipedia. Accessed 2026. https://grokipedia.com/page/houston_coal_company_store
Aurora Research Associates, LLC. Coal Heritage Survey Update – Demolished Properties, McDowell County, West Virginia (as of December 2016). June 2018. https://www.aurora-llc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Coal-Heritage-Survey-Demolished-Properties.pdf
West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. “WV Mine Disasters 1884 to Present.” Charleston: WV OMHST. https://minesafety.wv.gov/historical-statistical-data/wv-mine-disasters-1884-to-present/
Denver Public Library, Western History Collection. United States Mining Disasters Index, 1839–2006. https://history.denverlibrary.org/sites/history/files/USDisasterIndexFINAL.pdf
U.S. Bureau of Mines. Information Circular (includes “Sketch of Explosion Area, Carswell Mine, Kimball, W. Va., January 22, 1941”). Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1940s. Google Books record. https://books.google.com/books?id=-r6E_48PZQAC
U.S. Bureau of Mines. “Preventing Fatal Explosions in Coal Mines.” Research report cited in Russell Sage Foundation working paper Preventing Fatal Explosions in Coal Mines. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, ca. 2010. https://www.russellsage.org/sites/default/files/Preventing-Fatal-Explosions-Coal-Mines.pdf
“West Virginia Coal Mine Disasters.” Legends of America. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/wv-coal-disasters/
Brown Family. Brown Family Papers (Collection 4341). Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Finding aid. https://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/b/Brown4341.html
Garnett, James M. Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of West Virginia. Richmond: R. H. Woodward & Co., 1891. Full text at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/biographicalhist00garn
Pocahontas Operators Association. Through the Coal Fields: An Illustrated Itinerary Through the Pocahontas Coal Field. Pocahontas, VA: Pocahontas Operators Association, 1920s. Digital copy. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/75177/dot_75177_DS1.pdf
Aurora Research Associates, LLC. Coal Heritage Survey Update Final Report, McDowell County, West Virginia (context on Carswell Hollow and Houston Collieries). Charleston: WV SHPO, 2018. https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/national-coal/survey.pdf
Numismatic Bibliomania Society. “Scrip Talk: October 1974 Issue.” Numismatic Portal (NNP). Entry on Houston Collieries Co. scrip at Carswell and Kimball. https://nnp.wustl.edu/Library/AdvancedSearch?fullsearchterm=%22HOUSTON+COLLIERIES+CO+Carswell%22
West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. 2011 Annual Report (includes historical mine disaster tables listing Carswell explosions). Charleston: WV OMHST, 2011. https://minesafety.wv.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2011-CY-Annual-Report.pdf
Chambers, S. Allen Jr. “McDowell County.” In SAH Archipedia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012–. https://sah-archipedia.org/essays/WV-01-0003-0002
“Kimball, West Virginia.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Last modified 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimball,_West_Virginia
Powell, Brian M. “Houston Coal Company Store.” Photograph, June 8, 2007. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houston_Coal_Company_Store.jpg
ADP Research Institute. “Coal Company Scrip Paid to Miners Often Left Them Deep in Debt.” Rethink Quarterly, October 15, 2021. https://rethinkq.adp.com/artifact-coal-company-scrip-miners/
Author Note: Company stores fascinate me because they show how one building could control pay, groceries, mail, and news in a coal camp. I hope this look at the Houston store helps you see that long brick facade in Carswell Hollow as a doorway into McDowell County’s larger story of coal, credit, danger, and preservation.