Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Harry Totz of McDowell, West Virginia
In the early 1920s, a new name appeared in the Harlan County coalfields. The place had already been known as Colton. It had also been associated with Pine Mountain Station. Then, as coal development gathered along the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River, the name Totz attached itself to the community, the post office, and the mine.
That name came from Harry Totz.
The story of Harry Totz is not the story of every person who lived at Totz, Kentucky. It is not a full history of the coal camp, the school, the later operators, or the labor conflict that touched the place after his first involvement had passed. Those stories deserve their own space. Harry Totz matters here because his name became fixed on the map of Harlan County, and because the sources connect him to one of the many outside entrepreneurs who helped turn mountain land into coal property during the great industrial push of the early twentieth century.
He was a West Virginia coalfield businessman before he became a Kentucky place name. Robert M. Rennick’s post office history says that Edgar L. Bradley applied for the Totz post office to serve the recently opened Colton Station and the Harlan Cumberland Coal Company mine begun there by Harry Totz of West Virginia. Rennick’s place-name work gives the same broad conclusion in simpler form. Totz was named for Harry Totz of West Virginia, who had acquired the local mine by 1921.
Kentucky Atlas summarizes the result from the geographic side. Totz is a Harlan County community on the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River, about twelve miles northeast of Harlan. It was originally known as Colton, was renamed for Harry Totz, and had a post office opened in 1921.
Behind those short place-name entries was a much larger Appalachian pattern. Rail lines, post offices, coal seams, land purchases, and company investment often arrived together. A name could move from a man’s signature on a business paper to a mine, from a mine to a postal application, and from a postal application to a community identity that lasted long after the first investor stepped away.
From the West Virginia Coalfields
Harry Totz entered the Harlan County record from the direction of southern West Virginia. That point matters because Harlan County’s coal boom was never isolated inside county lines. Capital, labor, mining knowledge, store networks, and family ties moved back and forth across the Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia borders.
The best scholarly source for Harry Totz’s personal background is Deborah R. Weiner’s work on Jewish life in the Central Appalachian coalfields. Her study places Jewish immigrants and their children inside the commercial world of southern West Virginia, southeastern Kentucky, and southwestern Virginia. It argues that many Jewish families entered the coalfields as retailers, merchants, and middle-class entrepreneurs during the same years that railroads opened the mountains to large-scale coal extraction.
In that world, Harry Totz’s path makes sense. Weiner’s work connects him to Lithuania, Keystone, Northfork, and Harlan County coal land. Searchable excerpts from the dissertation trail state that his parents brought him and his siblings from Lithuania to the coalfields, that he was associated with Keystone as a child, and that by 1921 he was running a Northfork general store when he acquired coal land in Harlan County.
That was not an unusual kind of movement for the coalfields. A storekeeper could understand credit, supply chains, local markets, railroad access, and the daily economy of coal towns. The company store was one of the central institutions of coal-camp life, but independent and semi-independent merchants also helped shape the region. They sold goods, extended credit, built relationships, and sometimes moved from retail into land, mineral, or mining ventures.
Harry Totz appears in public life at Northfork before his Harlan County development. The West Virginia Legislative Hand Book and Manual and Official Register for 1917 lists Harry Totz of Northfork in McDowell County political committee material. That small entry does not tell his whole life, but it places him in a coalfield town where business, politics, and industrial growth were closely tied.
By the time his name reached Harlan County, Harry Totz was not simply a stranger passing through. He was part of a larger borderland business world that linked McDowell County, West Virginia, with the Cumberland coalfields of Kentucky.
The Harlan County Investment
The documentary trail points to 1921 as the turning point.
Rennick’s post office history says the Totz post office application was tied to Colton Station and the Harlan Cumberland Coal Company mine begun there by Harry Totz. Kentucky Atlas says the place was renamed for Harry Totz after he bought the local coal mine around 1921. Rennick’s place-name manuscript states that he had acquired the local mine by 1921. Taken together, these sources make the same core claim. Harry Totz was remembered because his investment or development work stood at the beginning of the new coalfield identity of the place.
The land records remain the most important next stop for proving the business details. The Harlan County deed books and deed indexes, especially the index running into the twentieth century, are the records most likely to show the actual land transaction, mineral conveyance, lease, or corporate transfer. A search around 1920 to 1922 for Harry Totz, Harlan Cumberland Coal Mining Company, Colton, Pine Mountain Station, and property along the Poor Fork would likely provide the clearest paper trail.
That matters because place-name histories often preserve the memory of who a place was named for, while deeds show how the property changed hands. In Harry Totz’s case, the place-name record is strong enough to identify him as the namesake. The land records would help explain the mechanics of how he became tied to the mine itself.
The name Harlan Cumberland Coal Mining Company appears in later compiled coal-camp lists as the operator at Totz from 1921 to 1925. Kentucky mine reports from the 1920s also point researchers toward the company and the mine at Totz. Those reports can help confirm production, operator names, mine officials, and the early years of the operation, although they do not replace the deed books for proving the original purchase.
The fact that the post office opened in 1921 is also important. A post office was more than a mail stop. In rural and industrial Appalachia, it helped fix a place in government records. It gave miners, merchants, families, and companies a practical address. It also helped turn a railroad point and mining operation into a recognized community. For Harry Totz, the post office helped make his name permanent in Harlan County.
A Merchant’s Name on a Mining Place
Harry Totz’s story shows how a person could become part of Appalachian memory without leaving behind the kind of full biography that famous politicians, soldiers, or reformers often left.
The sources do not yet give every detail of his life. They do not, from the easily accessible record, give a complete account of his childhood, his full family history, his exact business structure in Kentucky, or his final years. What they do give is a firm outline. He came from the Jewish commercial world of the Central Appalachian coalfields. He was associated with Northfork, West Virginia. By 1921, he had acquired coal land or the local mine in Harlan County. His name replaced Colton as the name attached to the post office and community.
That is enough to place him within an overlooked part of Appalachian history.
Coalfield development is often told through giant corporations, absentee owners, labor organizers, violent strikes, and the daily endurance of miners and their families. All of those are central to the region’s story. But between the miner and the corporation stood many smaller business figures whose names appear in deeds, post office applications, mine reports, store accounts, and local memory. Harry Totz belongs in that middle space.
He was not a local mountain farmer whose family name slowly became attached to a creek or hollow over generations. He was not a coal miner whose labor underground built the camp one shift at a time. He was a businessman from the West Virginia side of the coalfields whose investment or development work marked a new industrial phase along the Poor Fork.
That distinction is important. It keeps the focus on what the sources actually say. Harry Totz did not create Harlan County. He did not create the Poor Fork. He did not create the lives of the families who later made Totz a community. But he did become the namesake of the place, and that fact preserved his role in the moment when Colton Station and the local mine became tied to the Harlan Cumberland Coal Company.
Harry Totz and the Jewish Coalfield Story
One of the most interesting parts of Harry Totz’s history is that it connects Harlan County to the Jewish history of Central Appalachia.
That history is often left out of popular accounts of the coalfields. The public image of Appalachian coal towns usually centers on native-born mountain families, Black miners from the South, immigrant miners from southern and eastern Europe, Welsh and Scottish mining traditions, and company officials from industrial cities. Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs are less often remembered, even though they played important roles in many coalfield towns.
Deborah R. Weiner’s research helps restore that missing context. Her dissertation describes how East European Jewish immigrants entered Central Appalachia during the same period that railroads and coal companies transformed the region. Many became retailers in coal towns and mountain commercial centers. Their stores served miners, railroad workers, farm families, and company-town residents. Some families built lasting communities, supported congregations, and took part in civic life while remaining distinct religious and cultural minorities in overwhelmingly Christian surroundings.
Harry Totz fits that broader pattern, but with a Kentucky twist. His name crossed from the merchant world of Northfork into the industrial landscape of Harlan County. If Weiner’s account is followed, he and his brother Abe were connected to the building of a mining complex, town, post office, and rail connection in Kentucky before Harry returned to his role as a leading Northfork merchant.
That return is worth noting. It suggests that Harry Totz’s Harlan County role may have been important but not necessarily permanent in the way the community name became permanent. His business life remained rooted in the wider coalfield network. The place named for him remained rooted in Harlan County.
What the Records Still Need to Show
The strongest sources identify Harry Totz as the namesake of Totz, Kentucky, and connect him to the mine by 1921. But a careful history should also admit where the trail is still incomplete.
The deed books should be checked directly. They may show whether Harry Totz bought land personally, acted through a company, leased mineral rights, partnered with others, or transferred property into Harlan Cumberland Coal Mining Company. The deed index may also show whether his name appears under alternate spellings or through related parties.
The mine reports should be checked year by year. Reports from the early 1920s can help show when Harlan Cumberland first appears, how the mine was identified, who was listed as operator or superintendent, and how long the company remained active. Later reports can show when the property passed into other company names, but those later operators should be treated as part of the afterlife of the place rather than the core of Harry Totz’s own story.
The post office site records may also help. National Archives records for post office site locations can sometimes show the position of a proposed or active post office in relation to railroads, rivers, roads, and neighboring offices. For a place like Totz, that kind of record could help reconstruct the practical geography behind the name.
Local newspapers may add the human details. If Harry Totz appeared in business notices, land-sale notices, coal-company announcements, court items, or obituaries, newspapers in Harlan, Bluefield, Welch, and nearby towns may help fill gaps that the place-name sources leave open.
Until those records are checked, it is best not to claim more than the sources prove. The reliable record shows Harry Totz as a West Virginia coalfield businessman, tied to Jewish Appalachian commercial history, who acquired or developed the local mine by 1921 and became the namesake of a Harlan County community. That is the heart of the story.
Why Harry Totz Matters
Harry Totz matters because his name marks a moment when Harlan County was changing quickly.
Before the coal camp identity settled in, the place was known as Colton and was associated with Pine Mountain Station. After the mine and post office developed, Totz became the name that endured. That change tells a familiar Appalachian story in a small, specific way. Industrial development did not simply bring jobs and company houses. It renamed places. It reorganized maps. It tied mountain communities to outside capital, railroad routes, mineral ownership, and company records.
The name Totz also reminds readers that Appalachian history was never as simple as one people, one economy, or one kind of community. Harry Totz’s path ran from Lithuania through the West Virginia coalfields to Harlan County. His story touches Jewish immigration, coalfield commerce, Appalachian entrepreneurship, and the transformation of land along the Poor Fork into a mining place recognized by state reports, postal records, and maps.
Most people who say the name Totz today may think first of the Harlan County community. That is natural. Communities outgrow their namesakes. Families live there, work there, worship there, go to school there, and remember it in ways that have little to do with the first businessman whose name appeared in the records.
But behind the name was Harry Totz. His life reminds us that even a small place-name can open a door into larger Appalachian history, where immigrant families, coalfield merchants, county deed books, mine reports, rail stations, and post offices all met in the making of a mountain community.
Sources & Further Reading
Rennick, Robert M. “Harlan County: Post Offices.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 2004. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/391/
Rennick, Robert M. “Place Names Beginning with the Letter T.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/
Rennick, Robert M. “Harlan County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/76/
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Totz, Kentucky.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-totz.html
Weiner, Deborah R. “A History of Jewish Life in the Central Appalachian Coalfields, 1870s to 1970s.” PhD diss., West Virginia University, 2002. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/9997/
West Virginia. West Virginia Legislative Hand Book and Manual and Official Register, 1917. Charleston, WV: State of West Virginia, 1917. https://archive.org/stream/westvirginialegi1917west/westvirginialegi1917west_djvu.txt
Harlan County, Kentucky. Clerk of the County Court. Deeds, 1820 to 1901; Deed Index, 1820 to 1961. FamilySearch Catalog. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/111559
Harlan County Clerk’s Office. “Records.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://harlan.countyclerk.us/records/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Research Requests.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/researchers/Pages/researchrequests.aspx
National Archives. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837 to 1950.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Kentucky Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year 1924. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Department of Mines, 1925. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1924.pdf
Kentucky Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year 1927. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Department of Mines, 1928. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1927.pdf
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Coal Reports.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/coal/coal-reports.php
U.S. Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis
U.S. Geological Survey. “Download GNIS Data.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/download-gnis-data
U.S. Geological Survey. Louellen Quadrangle, Kentucky. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
KYGenWeb. “Coal Mines in Harlan.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/harlan/coal_mines.html
Coal Education. “Harlan County, Kentucky Coal Camps.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://coaleducation.org/coalhistory/coaltowns/coalcamps/harlan_county_coal_camps.htm
Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880 to 1930. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. https://utpress.org/title/miners-millhands-and-mountaineers/
Jillson, Willard Rouse. The Coal Industry in Kentucky. Louisville: John P. Morton and Company, 1922. https://archive.org/details/coalindustryinke00jill
Hevener, John W. Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931 to 1939. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072497
Titler, George. Hell in Harlan. Detroit: Literature Bureau, 1931. https://archive.org/details/HellInHarlan
Portelli, Alessandro. They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/they-say-in-harlan-county-9780199934856
Kentucky Heritage Council. A Historic Context of the New Deal in East Kentucky, 1933 to 1945. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Heritage Council. https://heritage.ky.gov/Documents/EKYNewDealContext.pdf
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. “Mine Data Retrieval System.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/data/default.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Enforcement and Compliance History Online.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://echo.epa.gov/
U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Annual Coal Report.” Accessed June 1, 2026. https://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/
Author Note: Harry Totz’s story is a reminder that even a small place-name can lead into a much larger Appalachian record. I wanted this article to stay focused on the man behind the name, while leaving room for Totz, the coal camp, and the later mine history to have their own articles.