Appalachian Community Histories – Lex, McDowell County: The Evans Family, Coal, Railroads, and a Lost West Virginia Post Office
Today, Lex is easy to pass without realizing how much history survives along this part of McDowell County. The unincorporated community lies north of Bradshaw in the Sandy River District, surrounded by the steep country of Dry Fork and the railroad valleys that once connected dozens of small settlements to the larger coalfield economy.
Lex never became a city and never developed the kind of commercial center that makes a community easy to recognize in old photographs. Its history survives instead through post office applications, census records, coal company reports, marriage licenses, draft cards, newspapers, railroad references, and federal maps. Together, those scattered records reveal a community shaped first by local families, then by the post office, railroad development, and the growth of the coal industry.
At the center of that story was Elexious Musick Evans, whose name would become permanently attached to the place.
Before There Was a Lex
The country around Lex had been settled long before the community received its official name. Families lived along the branches and narrow bottoms of the Sandy River District, farming whatever level ground they could find while relying on forests, livestock, and small local trade. McDowell County had been organized in 1858, but much of its southern and western territory remained difficult to reach. Mountains separated households that might have been only a few miles apart in a straight line, and even a short trip to a store, courthouse, railroad station, or post office could require following winding creek valleys for considerably greater distances.
Among the families established in this part of the county were the Evanses. Records place Elexious Musick Evans, whose name appears in several forms in historical documents, in the Sandy River District before the creation of Lex. Historian Hamill Kenny later connected the community’s name directly to Evans, identifying Elexious, or “Lex,” Evans as the early postmaster for whom the place was named.
That explanation fits the surviving postal records especially well. Lex was not a coal company town created from nothing. The evidence suggests an older rural settlement associated with Evans and neighboring families that gained a more formal identity when the federal government established a post office there.
Elexious Evans and the Lex Post Office
The clearest account of Lex’s beginning comes from research based on original United States Post Office Department records. On April 14, 1905, Elexis Music Evans submitted paperwork requesting a new post office. The application described the proposed location on the mail route between Avondale and Paynesville, where mail was then being carried three times each week. Bradshaw stood about four miles southwest, while Avondale was about four miles northwest.
More revealing was the population information. The application described a village of roughly 150 people and estimated that the office would serve about 275 residents. Lex therefore represented more than a small cluster of houses around Evans. From its beginning as a postal community, it was intended to serve families scattered throughout the surrounding mountain country.
The Lex post office was formally established on October 28, 1905, with Evans as its first postmaster. Postal records later documented changes in location, new postmasters, railroad connections, and the eventual closing of the office in 1955. The West Virginia State Archives also identifies 1905 as the beginning date for Lex as a recognized McDowell County place name.
Within only a few years, the name had become established enough to appear on federal maps.
Lex Appears on the Map
The 1910 United States Geological Survey map of the Iaeger quadrangle provides one of the best visual records of early Lex. Among Bradshaw, Avondale, Paynesville, Panther, Iaeger, and the surrounding streams and valleys, federal mapmakers labeled Lex by name only about five years after establishment of the post office.
The map also helps explain the community’s development. Lex belonged to a network of settlements strung through narrow mountain valleys rather than to a town laid out around a conventional street grid. Homes, farms, roads, and later industrial development followed the limited ground available along creeks and river bottoms. The same mountains that isolated these communities also made transportation essential, and the railroad soon became one of the most important forces shaping the Lex area.
When Evans submitted the postal application in 1905, the paperwork mentioned the Iaeger & Southern Railway but noted that a nearby station had not yet been located or named. At that moment, the transportation geography of the region was still developing.
The Iaeger & Southern had originated in the timber industry after William M. Ritter and his associates chartered the line in 1898. Norfolk & Western later acquired it, and the route became part of the railroad system extending through the Dry Fork country from Iaeger. As that network expanded, Lex became closely associated with a station known as Gluck.
Gluck, Lex, and the Railroad
By 1916, postal documents identified Gluck as the Norfolk & Western station serving Lex. That year, the post office was moved approximately two-sevenths of a mile south, and the accompanying documentation placed Hurricane Creek about three-quarters of a mile east and Dan about two miles south.
The connection between the community and the railroad remained visible for years. The 1927 USGS Iaeger map labeled the location “Gluck Lex PO,” showing how railroad and postal geography overlapped without being identical. Gluck was the station name, while Lex remained the postal and community name.
Later postal records explained the relationship even more clearly. Bradshaw was described as the depot, while Gluck served as the station for Lex. By 1942, surviving records referred to a Lex station, suggesting that the community’s own name had become more closely associated with the railroad as well.
For residents, the difference between a postal name and a railroad station name probably mattered less than the access both provided. Mail, passengers, freight, groceries, machinery, timber, coal, and news all moved through the same narrow transportation network. By the second decade of the twentieth century, Lex had become firmly connected to the wider economy of southern West Virginia.
Coal Comes Into the Story
The Evans family remained important as industrial development reached the community. In December 1916, a contemporary newspaper reported the incorporation of the Evans Pocahontas Coal Company of Lex, West Virginia. The company was capitalized at $50,000 and included members of the Evans family among those involved, directly connecting the coal business to the family network already associated with the community.
The timing was significant. By then, Norfolk & Western had transformed much of McDowell County by linking previously isolated mountain settlements with one of the nation’s most important coal-producing regions. Branch railroads pushed deeper into narrow valleys, making large-scale extraction possible wherever geology and transportation aligned.
Lex did not become a massive company town like Gary or Keystone, but official mining records show that coal became part of its economy. The West Virginia Department of Mines directory for the year ending June 30, 1923, listed the Evans Coal Company and gave Lex as its post office address.
That entry complicates any description of Lex as merely a rural crossroads named for a postmaster. By the 1910s and 1920s, the community had become tied directly to the industrial economy reshaping southern West Virginia, and even its post office became connected with coal company property.
When a Coal Company Wanted the Post Office Moved
One of the most revealing documents in the history of Lex comes from 1920. On March 12, Postmaster V. T. Strickler submitted paperwork for another change in the location of the post office. The proposed move was only about 125 yards northeast, but the explanation provides a rare glimpse into everyday community life.
The Hudson Coal Company wanted the post office removed from its building.
The paperwork anticipated the move around April 1 and reported that approximately 200 postal patrons lived within one mile of the office. That figure is important because it shows that Lex had developed into a substantial local community even though it had no incorporated town government.
The document also demonstrates how closely industry and daily life could overlap in McDowell County. A post office serving hundreds of people was operating from a coal company building, while homes, workplaces, roads, railroad facilities, and businesses occupied the same narrow valley.
There was often no sharp dividing line between an older mountain settlement and a newer coal community. Industry could grow into a place that already existed, adding miners, railroad employees, stores, sidings, machinery, and housing among families who had lived there for years. Lex appears to have developed in precisely that way.
A Community Without Town Limits
Lex can be difficult to reconstruct because it had no municipal boundary clearly defining who did or did not live there. In communities like this, the post office often served as the most meaningful geographic identifier.
A farmer might live on one branch, a miner farther down the valley, and a railroad worker near the tracks, yet all three could give Lex as their address. Marriage records, draft registrations, birth certificates, and death records therefore preserve the community more clearly than incorporation documents ever could.
Records from the area identify residents working in coal mines, on the railroad, and on farms. Robert Bruce Hutchinson, for example, was identified in a 1927 McDowell County marriage record as a railroad worker living at Lex. By the time of the 1940 census, he was working as a coal miner. Sam Coleman was likewise identified as a miner living at Lex and later appeared in the census as a track man in a coal mine.
These examples reflect the varied economy of the community. Lex belonged to the coalfields, but it was never simply a collection of company houses occupied by miners working for a single corporation. Railroad employees, farmers, laborers, families, and miners all shared the same postal identity.
Official state publications confirm the community’s continued importance. The 1916 West Virginia Blue Book listed Lex among the post offices of McDowell County, along with Bradshaw, Avondale, Iaeger, Panther, Paynesville, Twin Branch, and other communities. The 1919 and 1921 editions continued to list it.
For families scattered through the surrounding mountains, “Lex, West Virginia” was enough to identify home.
Lex During the Depression
By 1940, federal census records provide another clear indication that Lex remained a recognized community. The National Archives description for Enumeration District 24-59 specifically included part of Lex along with portions of Avondale, Bradshaw, Garland, Hull, Jolo, Mile Branch, and Panther within the Sandy River Magisterial District.
The way the district was described reflects the geography of southern McDowell County. These were distinct communities, but their boundaries blended into one another along roads, creeks, rail lines, and postal routes.
Census records also allow the human side of Lex to emerge more clearly. Residents in and around the area included miners, railroad workers, farmers, laborers, homemakers, and schoolchildren. Some families had deep roots in McDowell County, while others had arrived from nearby parts of Kentucky, Virginia, or elsewhere in West Virginia in search of work.
A brief newspaper item from 1939 offers an even more ordinary glimpse into the community. The November 3 issue of the McDowell Times reported that several people had been visiting in Lex on Sunday. The notice was not major news, which is precisely what makes it useful. The newspaper could mention Lex without explanation because local readers already knew the place.
Such references help move Lex beyond maps and government paperwork. People visited friends there, married there, received mail there, attended nearby schools and churches, worked in mines and on the railroad, buried relatives in local cemeteries, and gave Lex as their home address.
War Years and a Changing Community
The Second World War produced another generation of records carrying the Lex name. Marriage licenses and draft registrations identify men and women living there during the 1940s, some of whom entered military service while others remained in coal mining and railroad work that had become vital to wartime production.
The post office also continued to adapt. In 1938, it had been moved about 2,640 feet northwest, while postal documents continued describing the relationships among Lex, Bradshaw, Gluck, and the Norfolk & Western.
By then, Lex had already passed through several distinct periods of development. It began as an older rural settlement associated with local families, gained an official identity through the post office, became connected to the railroad, and then entered the coal economy that reshaped McDowell County. The Depression changed employment and family circumstances, while World War II drew residents into military service and increased demand for the region’s coal.
After the war, however, small rural post offices across Appalachia began losing some of the importance they had once held.
The End of the Lex Post Office
The Lex post office was discontinued on August 14, 1955, almost fifty years after Elexious Musick Evans became its first postmaster.
Its closing did not mean that Lex disappeared. This distinction matters because an official West Virginia place-name listing gives Lex the date range 1905 to 1939. That ending date should not be interpreted as the disappearance of the community or even of its postal identity. Detailed postal records carry the office through 1955, while other records from the 1940s and 1950s continue identifying residents with Lex addresses.
Instead, the closing reflected broader changes taking place throughout rural Appalachia. Improved roads made neighboring towns easier to reach, rural mail delivery reduced dependence on small local offices, and passenger rail service became less central to everyday travel. At the same time, mechanization reduced employment in many coal operations, beginning the long population decline that transformed much of McDowell County during the second half of the twentieth century.
Lex lost one of the institutions that had defined it for half a century, but the community name survived.
What Lex Tells Us About McDowell County
Lex is historically important precisely because it was never one of McDowell County’s most famous places. There was no Matewan-style gun battle, no enormous company town like Gary, and no courthouse or major commercial district. Its value lies in what it reveals about the thousands of smaller Appalachian communities that existed between better-known towns.
Lex grew from families already living in the mountains. Its name became associated with Elexious “Lex” Evans, and the creation of a post office turned that local name into an official address. The railroad connected the settlement to a wider transportation network, while coal companies brought new employment and industrial activity into the valley. Miners, farmers, railroad workers, homemakers, and children continued using Lex as the name of their community through the Depression, World War II, and the early postwar period.
The surviving evidence is scattered but remarkably consistent. The 1910 map simply labels Lex. The 1927 map records “Gluck Lex PO.” The 1940 census names Lex within an enumeration district. Marriage records and draft registrations identify it as home. The Department of Mines places a coal company there. A newspaper casually reports Sunday visitors traveling to Lex. Finally, postal records document the closing of the post office in 1955.
Taken separately, these records provide only fragments. Together, they restore a community.
That is often the best way to understand places like Lex. Their histories were rarely preserved in a single book or famous photograph. Instead, they survive across government maps, courthouse volumes, newspapers, company records, family cemeteries, and postal documents. For nearly half a century, letters addressed simply to Lex, West Virginia, made their way into this narrow section of McDowell County.
Behind those addresses were families, workplaces, churches, roads, mines, railroad tracks, and generations of people who called Lex home.
Sources & Further Reading
Evans, Alyce. “West Virginia Research Papers.” La Posta 34, no. 1 (February–March 2003). https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-1.pdf.
Evans, Norma Pontiff. First Families of McDowell County, (West) Virginia. 1981. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3791377M/First_families_of_McDowell_County_%28West%29_Virginia.
Friedl, Joseph. A History of Education in McDowell County, West Virginia, 1858–1976. 1975. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html.
Hennen, Ray V., and Robert M. Gawthrop. Wyoming and McDowell Counties. Wheeling, WV: West Virginia Geological Survey, 1915. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_10446.htm.
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://books.google.com/books?id=61YlAAAAMAAJ.
Library of Congress. “The McDowell Times, Keystone, W. Va., 1904–1941.” Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092050/.
McDowell County Centennial, 1858–1958. McDowell County, WV, 1958. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html.
The McDowell Times (Keystone, WV). “Local and Personal News.” November 3, 1939, 3. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092050/1939-11-03/ed-1/seq-3/.
Norfolk & Western Historical Society. “Dry Fork Branches.” The Arrow. https://www.nwhs.org/eTAF/NWHS.eTAF.2016_02.web.pdf.
Pocahontas Land Corp. v. Evans, 332 S.E.2d 604 (W. Va. 1985). https://law.justia.com/cases/west-virginia/supreme-court/1985/16314-5.html.
Solins, Mrs. Samuel, and Mrs. Paul Jones. McDowell County History: A Pictorial History of McDowell County, West Virginia. 1959. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html.
Sowers, Auburn Daniel. Facts About McDowell County, West Virginia. 1912. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html.
The Sunday Telegram. “Evans Pocahontas Coal Company Incorporation Notice.” December 17, 1916. https://newspaperarchive.com/the-sunday-telegram-dec-17-1916-p-8/.
United States Bureau of the Census. “1940 Census Enumeration District Descriptions: West Virginia, McDowell County, ED 24-58 and ED 24-59.” National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Descriptions_-_West_Virginia_-_McDowell_County_-_ED_24-58,_ED_24-59_-_NARA_-_5888425.jpg.
United States Geological Survey. Iaeger Quadrangle, West Virginia. 1910. https://pastmaps.com/map/iaeger-mcdowell-county-wv-usgs-topo-1910.
United States Geological Survey. Iaeger Quadrangle, West Virginia. 1927. https://pastmaps.com/map/iaeger-mcdowell-county-wv-usgs-topo-1927.
United States Post Office Department. Records Relating to the Establishment, Site Location, Postmasters, and Discontinuance of the Lex, West Virginia, Post Office, 1905–1955. Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.
West Virginia Archives and History. “Districts and Place Names in West Virginia.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/communities/districtplacenames.html.
West Virginia Archives and History. “McDowell County.” County Bibliographies. West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html.
West Virginia Archives and History. “Place Names in West Virginia.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/placenames/placnaml.html.
West Virginia Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year Ending June 30, 1923. Charleston, WV: West Virginia Department of Mines, 1923. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Annual_report_of_the_Department_of_Mines_for_the_year_ending_…_%28IA_annualreportofde41west%29.pdf.
West Virginia Legislature. West Virginia Blue Book, 1916. Charleston, WV, 1916. https://www.wvlegislature.gov/legisdocs/publications/bluebook/WVS_Bluebook_1916.pdf.
West Virginia Legislature. West Virginia Blue Book, 1919. Charleston, WV, 1919. https://www.wvlegislature.gov/legisdocs/publications/bluebook/WVS_Bluebook_1919.pdf.
West Virginia Legislature. West Virginia Blue Book, 1921. Charleston, WV, 1921. https://www.wvlegislature.gov/legisdocs/publications/bluebook/WVS_Bluebook_1921.pdf.
West Virginia State Archives. “McDowell County Circuit Court Case Files.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/collections/ar/ar2094.html.
West Virginia State Archives. “McDowell County Court Records on Microfilm.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/bluenote.html.
West Virginia State Archives. “Newspapers on Microfilm: McDowell County.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/newspapers/mcdowell.html.
West Virginia University. West Virginia and Regional History Center. “McDowell County Histories, A&M 3244.” https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1543.
West Virginia University. West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Maps, Atlases, and Gazetteers.” https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/collections/maps-atlases-and-gazetteers.
Author Note: This history of Lex was pieced together from postal records, government maps, census material, mining reports, newspapers, and records connected with the families who called the community home. Small places like Lex often survive only in scattered documents, and bringing those pieces together helps preserve a community whose history might otherwise disappear.