Appalachian History Series – Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company: The Corporation Behind Clover Splint Coal Company
The paper trail begins far from the upper Clover Fork of Harlan County. It begins in corporate filings, railroad plans, coal land records, and a federal bridge law passed in Washington. Before the name Clover Splint became tied to Closplint, Kentucky, the company behind it carried a longer and more revealing title: Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company.
That older name matters. It shows what the corporation was meant to do. This was not only a mining company in the narrow sense. It was formed around coal land, railroad access, and the movement of Appalachian coal from mountain seams to industrial markets. Its story connects Pittsburgh capital, West Virginia corporate law, eastern Kentucky coal lands, the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, and the later company town of Closplint.
The company’s history is also easy to confuse with nearby names. Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company was not simply the same as Pittsburgh Coal Land Company, a related but separate real estate corporation in the Pittsburgh Coal system. It was a distinct corporate line that began in West Virginia in 1923, changed its name in 1926, and then became part of the larger history of Clover Splint Coal Company and Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company.
A Company Built Around Land and Access
The strongest corporate record places the beginning on May 7, 1923. Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company was incorporated in West Virginia, but its interests reached across the Kentucky and West Virginia border. The University of Pittsburgh’s Consolidation Coal Company Records identify Cub Mountain Coal Company as a predecessor and describe the company as owning coal lands in Martin and Pike Counties, Kentucky, and lands in Mingo County, West Virginia.
That geographic spread is important. Martin County and Pike County belonged to the Big Sandy coal country of eastern Kentucky. Mingo County sat across the Tug Fork in southern West Virginia. The corporation’s early footprint was not centered on Harlan County in the way the later Clover Splint name would be. It was centered on borderland coal property, on the Kentucky and West Virginia line, where railroads, rivers, and corporate charters shaped the coal business as much as the seams themselves.
The company’s title tells the same story. “Land and Railroad” was not ornamental language. In the coalfields, ownership of coal land meant little without a way to move coal. Rail connections, river crossings, rights of way, and bridges could decide whether a property became a producing operation or remained only an asset on paper. Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company belonged to that world, where landholding and transportation planning were part of the same business plan.
The Tug Fork Bridge
The clearest public sign of the company’s railroad purpose came in 1924. Congress approved an act granting consent for the Pittsburgh Coal, Land and Railroad Company to construct, maintain, and operate a bridge across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River at or near Nolan, in Mingo County, West Virginia, to the Kentucky side in Pike County.
That act was short, but it was historically useful. It placed the company directly in the work of building a crossing between West Virginia and Kentucky. It also showed that the company’s operations were not only private corporate matters. Because the Tug Fork formed an interstate waterway, federal consent was required before such a bridge could be constructed.
The House committee report behind the act gives more context. The War Department had no objection to the bill, and the report explained that congressional consent was needed because the navigable portions of the Tug Fork did not lie within a single state. In other words, a coal company’s bridge became a matter for Congress because the river itself formed a state boundary.
That bridge authorization helps explain why the company’s railroad identity mattered. The coalfield economy depended on crossings like this. A bridge at Nolan could link Mingo County, West Virginia, and Pike County, Kentucky, within a larger transportation network. It also shows how Pittsburgh-backed coal interests were working along the Tug Fork before the Clover Splint name became better known in Harlan County.
Becoming Clover Splint
On July 28, 1926, the company’s official name changed from Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company, Incorporated, to Clover Splint Coal Company, Incorporated. The West Virginia Secretary of State record preserves that amendment, and the University of Pittsburgh finding aid gives the same corporate transition. In the Pittsburgh archive, the Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company subseries lists Clover Splint Coal Company as the successor and notes that the stockholder and director minutes run from April 30, 1923, to July 23, 1934.
That name change marked more than a cosmetic adjustment. The old name described land and railroad development. The new name pointed toward coal production and a coal identity that would become tied to Closplint. The name Clover Splint drew attention to splint coal, a hard and valuable bituminous coal associated with the eastern Kentucky coalfields. Over time, the company name, the mine name, and the community name became linked in local memory.
The corporate trail is layered rather than perfectly simple. One state record presents the corporation as established in 1923, renamed in 1926, later amended, and voluntarily dissolved in 1946. The University of Pittsburgh records also identify a later Clover Splint Coal Company, Incorporated, incorporated in West Virginia in 1934, with Clover Splint Coal Company and Harlan Splint Land Company as predecessors. That later corporate stage mined high quality splint coal at Closplint and was purchased by Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company on August 23, 1944.
For a local history article, the safest way to read the evidence is to treat the company as a corporate line that changed through amendments, reorganizations, and successor companies. The business began under the Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad name, became associated with Clover Splint after 1926, and eventually passed into the Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company system.
From Borderland Holdings to Closplint
The most visible part of the Clover Splint story belongs to Harlan County. Closplint, Kentucky, grew around the Clover Splint Coal Company’s operation on the upper Clover Fork. The company name shaped the community name, though the post office and local usage shortened Cloversplint into Closplint.
This Harlan County phase should not erase the earlier land and railroad phase in Martin, Pike, and Mingo Counties. Instead, it shows how coal companies could shift from landholding and development into more recognizable mine operation. By the late 1920s and 1930s, the Clover Splint name had become tied to a working mine, a coal camp, a railroad-served valley, and a company landscape in Harlan County.
The West Virginia corporate record shows a major amendment in 1937, when the company’s office was changed to the Koppers Building in Pittsburgh and its chief works were changed to Closplint, Kentucky. That detail is one of the clearest pieces of evidence connecting the official corporation to the Harlan County operation. It places the company’s executive identity in Pittsburgh while anchoring its industrial works in Closplint.
That arrangement captures much of Appalachian coal history in one record. The capital, offices, directors, and corporate paperwork often sat outside the mountains. The mine, the tipple, the houses, the school, the roads, and the daily labor sat in the valley.
Coal Worth Studying
Clover Splint’s coal drew attention beyond company records. In 1939, the United States Bureau of Mines published Technical Paper 599, “Carbonizing Properties and Petrographic Composition of High Splint Bed Coal from Closplint Mine, Closplint, Harlan County, Ky.” The title alone says a great deal. Federal scientists were not studying the mine simply as a local curiosity. They were analyzing the coal’s industrial qualities, its carbonizing behavior, and its petrographic composition.
The United States Geological Survey later preserved the trail in Bulletin 1432, the catalog of the Reinhardt Thiessen Coal Thin Section Slide Collection. The catalog includes High Splint coal from the Closplint mine in Harlan County and notes that the bed was measured and sampled on September 28, 1940. It also points back to the Bureau of Mines technical paper.
These sources are important because they move the company story beyond incorporation dates and court cases. They show the material reason the company mattered. Clover Splint was tied to a coal bed that federal researchers considered worthy of specialized study. The coal itself left a scientific record.
Regulation, Rates, and the Federal Coal System
Clover Splint also appears in the regulatory world of the 1930s and 1940s. The Federal Register placed the company inside New Deal and wartime coal regulation. A 1937 Federal Register schedule for District No. 8 established minimum prices for coals under the Bituminous Coal Act of 1937. Later wartime pricing material in 1942 referred to Clover Splint Coal Company, its Pittsburgh office, and sales from its Clover Splint Mine at Closplint, Kentucky.
These records can look dry at first reading. They are tables, orders, price schedules, and docket references. But for Appalachian history, they matter because they show how a Harlan County mine was governed by national systems. The coal was not only mined locally and shipped by rail. It was priced, classified, regulated, and disputed within federal frameworks that tied the valley to Washington, Pittsburgh, and national industrial demand.
The company also appears in Interstate Commerce Commission material involving the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. That trail points toward the continuing importance of trackage, rates, and railroad access. From the 1924 Tug Fork bridge act to the later railroad and coal price records, the company’s history repeatedly returns to the same theme. Coal land only became valuable when transportation made it usable.
The Company in the Court Record
A different kind of record appears in Saylor v. Clover Splint Coal Company, decided by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1944. The case involved Willard, or Garland, Saylor, who sued after being injured while a mine opening was being excavated. The court record says Saylor was employed by J. D. Fowler, who had a contract to do outside work for the coal company.
The case is not a full history of the company. It does not tell the whole story of mine labor at Closplint. Still, it is useful because it opens a window onto the work arrangements surrounding the operation. It shows contractors, injury payments, receipts, releases, and legal responsibility. It also places the company directly in Harlan County’s court system during the same era when its Closplint operation was active.
For local history, these legal records are valuable because they show the company from the worker’s side of the paper trail. Corporate records tell us when a company formed, changed names, raised stock, or dissolved. Court records show how people encountered the company through work, injury, contracts, and claims.
Into Pittsburgh Consolidation
By the mid-1940s, the Clover Splint line had moved into a larger corporate structure. The University of Pittsburgh records state that the later Clover Splint Coal Company, Incorporated, was purchased by Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company on August 23, 1944. The West Virginia Secretary of State record shows voluntary dissolution in 1946.
The name did not disappear immediately from the landscape. West Virginia History OnView preserves a 1947 photograph titled “Tipple at Clover Splint Mine, Closplint, Ky.” The description identifies it as a close-up view of the tipple at Clover Splint Mine, Consolidation Coal Company, in Closplint, Kentucky. That image is one of the best visual clues to the transition. The old mine name remained visible even after corporate ownership moved into the Consolidation Coal system.
That is common in coalfield history. Company names changed, merged, dissolved, and reappeared in different forms, while communities continued to use the names that had shaped their daily lives. Closplint carried the memory of Clover Splint long after the earliest Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad name had faded from everyday use.
Why the Company Matters
Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company matters because it shows the hidden corporate beginning behind a Harlan County coal community. It was not just a name on a charter. It was part of a system that joined land speculation, railroad development, interstate bridge construction, coal extraction, federal regulation, and company town life.
Its story also reminds us to be careful with coal company names. Pittsburgh Coal Land Company and Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company were not the same corporation. Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad became Clover Splint Coal Company through a 1926 name change. Later Clover Splint records point to reorganizations and purchase by Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company. The paper trail is not impossible to follow, but it does require attention to dates, states of incorporation, successor companies, and archived minute books.
The company’s history stretches across several Appalachian places. It began with coal lands in Martin and Pike Counties, Kentucky, and Mingo County, West Virginia. It entered the federal record through a bridge across the Tug Fork near Nolan. It became best remembered through the Closplint mine and coal camp in Harlan County. It ended, at least as an independent corporate name, inside the larger consolidation of mid-twentieth-century coal.
In that way, the company stands for more than one mine. It stands for how Appalachian coal was organized. The mountains held the seams, but the companies that worked them were built out of charters, capital, railroads, bridges, contracts, laboratories, courtrooms, and federal regulations. Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company, later Clover Splint Coal Company, left records in all of those places.
Sources & Further Reading
West Virginia Secretary of State. “CLOVER SPLINT COAL COMPANY, INCORPORATED.” Business Organization Detail. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://apps.sos.wv.gov/business/corporations/organization.aspx?org=47735
University of Pittsburgh Library System, Archives & Special Collections. “Guide to the Consolidation Coal Company Records, 1854–1971.” Historic Pittsburgh. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/object/pitt%3AUS-PPiU-ais201103
University of Pittsburgh Library System, Archives & Special Collections. “Consolidation Coal Company Records, 1854–1971.” Digital Collections. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3AUS-PPiU-ais201103
United States Congress. “An Act Granting the Consent of Congress to the Pittsburgh Coal, Land and Railroad Company to Construct, Maintain, and Operate a Bridge Across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River at or Near Nolan, West Virginia.” United States Statutes at Large 43, chap. 219, Public No. 166, approved May 31, 1924. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-43/pdf/STATUTE-43-Pg247-2.pdf
United States House of Representatives. “Bridge Across Tug Fork of Big Sandy River.” House Report No. 137, 68th Cong., 1st sess., to accompany H.R. 5218. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1924. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-08226_00_00-104-0137-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-08226_00_00-104-0137-0000.pdf
United States Government Printing Office. Monthly Catalog of United States Public Documents. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-GP3-c149efca61b4b739f488cc0700caf6d3/pdf/GOVPUB-GP3-c149efca61b4b739f488cc0700caf6d3.pdf
Interstate Commerce Commission. Clover Splint Coal Company, Incorporated v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, Docket No. 24565, 192 I.C.C. 4. Washington, DC: Interstate Commerce Commission, 1933.
Kentucky Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines, State of Kentucky, 1928. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1928. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/DanielReportMines1928.pdf
Kentucky Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines, State of Kentucky, 1936. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1936. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/s_8/KGS8AR21936c.pdf
Kentucky Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines, State of Kentucky, 1937. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1937. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/s_8/KGS8AR31937c.pdf
Fieldner, A. C., J. D. Davis, D. A. Reynolds, W. A. Selvig, G. C. Sprunk, and H. S. Auvil. Carbonizing Properties and Petrographic Composition of High Splint-Bed Coal from Closplint Mine, Closplint, Harlan County, Ky. U.S. Bureau of Mines Technical Paper 599. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1939. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005978943
Schopf, James M., and Orrin G. Oftedahl. The Reinhardt Thiessen Coal Thin-Section Slide Collection of the U.S. Geological Survey: Catalog and Notes. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1432. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1976. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1432/report.pdf
United States. Federal Register 2, no. 234. December 3, 1937. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/fedreg/fr002/fr002234/fr002234.pdf
United States. Federal Register 7, no. 160. August 14, 1942. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1942-08-14/pdf/FR-1942-08-14.pdf
United States. Federal Register 8, no. 89. May 6, 1943. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Federal_Register_1943-05-06-_Vol_8_Iss_89_%28IA_sim_federal-register-find_1943-05-06_8_89%29.pdf
Baker, John A., E. H. Walker, and J. R. Stacy. Public and Industrial Water Supplies of the Eastern Coal Field Region, Kentucky. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 369. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1956. https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1956/0369/report.pdf
United States Geological Survey. “Public and Industrial Water Supplies of the Eastern Coal Field Region, Kentucky.” Publications Warehouse. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/public-and-industrial-water-supplies-eastern-coal-field-region-kentucky
Saylor v. Clover Splint Coal Co., 297 Ky. 604, 180 S.W.2d 563. Kentucky Court of Appeals, 1944. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/saylor-v-clover-splint-901847935
Clover Splint Coal Co. v. Lorenz, 270 Ky. 676, 110 S.W.2d 457. Kentucky Court of Appeals, 1937. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/clover-splint-coal-co-902331856
West Virginia History OnView. “Tipple at Clover Splint Mine, Closplint, Ky.” October 10, 1947. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/004413
Smithsonian Institution, Archives Center. Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company Photographs and Papers. National Museum of American History. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://sova.si.edu
Hodge, James M. Supplementary Report on the Coals of Clover Fork and Poor Fork in Harlan County. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1916. https://kygs.uky.edu/pubs/coal
Hodge, James M. Supplementary Report on the Coals of Clover Fork and Poor Fork in Harlan County. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1916. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supplementary_report_on_the_coals_of_Clover_Fork_and_Poor_Fork_in_Harlan_County_%28IA_supplementaryrep00hodgrich%29.pdf
Coal Age 41, no. 10. October 1936. https://delibra.bg.polsl.pl/Content/9069/P-375_Vol41_Nr10.pdf
Coal Age 43, no. 10. October 1938. https://delibra.bg.polsl.pl/Content/9155/p-375_vol43_1938_no10.pdf
Coal Age 52, no. 10. October 1947. https://archive.org/stream/sim_coal-age_1947-10_52_10/sim_coal-age_1947-10_52_10_djvu.txt
American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. “Splint Coal, with Discussion.” Transactions of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers 88. New York: AIME, 1930. https://aimehq.org/doclibrary-assets/search/docs/Volume%20088/088-46.pdf
AIME. AIME Directory, 1940. New York: American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1940. https://aimehq.org/doclibrary-assets/books/AIME%20Directory%201940/056.pdf
United States Bureau of the Census. 1950 Census of Population. Vol. 1, Number of Inhabitants, Kentucky. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1952. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-20.pdf
United States Bureau of the Census. “1940 Census Enumeration District Maps, Kentucky, Harlan County, Louellen, Black Bottom, Closplint, Cloversplint.” National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Maps_-_Kentucky_-_Harlan_County_-_Louellen-BlackBottom-Closplint-Cloversplint_-_ED_48-15%2C_ED_48-16%2C_ED_48-21_-_NARA_-_5831923.jpg
Rennick, Robert M. “Harlan County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University, 2004. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/391/
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Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections. “Glyn Morris 1942 Harlan County Planning Council Minutes.” Accessed June 2, 2026. https://pinemountainsettlement.net/governance-directors-alphabetical-list/glyn-morris/glyn-morris-1942-harlan-county-planning-council-minutes/
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Portelli, Alessandro. “Patterns of Paternalism in Harlan County.” Appalachian Journal 17, no. 2 (Winter 1990). https://www.jstor.org/stable/40933201
Hevener, John W. Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931–39. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978. https://dokumen.pub/which-side-are-you-on-the-harlan-county-coal-miners-1931-39-0252002709-9780252002700.html
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West Virginia Encyclopedia. “Consolidation Coal Company.” Last modified August 21, 2024. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/1471
Author Note: This article follows the company record behind a name that can easily get buried under later coal camp memory. For readers in Harlan County and beyond, Pittsburgh Coal Land and Railroad Company shows how outside charters, railroad access, and local mine work all met in Appalachian coal history.