October 5, 2016–Huntington, WV

This is the last day of our adventure.  We are still in the Huntington area, so we are visiting the Farm Heritage Museum and Village. This museum provides interpretation of Appalachian village life from the early 1800s until the early 1900s.  We did not expect to learn much new here, but thought the collections might be a bit different than we’ve seen elsewhere.  The story is pretty similiar to everywhere else in the US, except due to the rugged terrain, some of the more modern stuff came later; like electricity was not widespread in this area until the 1980s.

Interestingly, you required a tour guide to get into the various buildings on the grounds. 

Our guide is demonstrating an old singer vacuum cleaner that you  hand pumped to create the vacuum to suck up dirt.  The next picture is of the tin smith, the only craftsman doing demos today.

An interesting display of wheels.

This is a farm, so guess what they had and what our favorite part of the visit was?  Yep, the critters.

They have one young fella the looks after all of the animals and it’s easy to see he really cares for them.  They all have names and most are very people friendly.  Although Lynn quickly became their BFF, as she gave them hay or grass to munch on.

Well, this is the end of this year’s big adventure (hopefully the drive home will not be one).  We have learned a lot and seen a lot.  We hope the info shared has not been too much, but we found it very interesting and wanted to share our new found knowledge.  Thanks for riding along, we have enjoyed the company!  And we never heard fighting or “Are we there yet?” from the backseat.

October 4, 2016 Tuesday–Point Pleasant

We are staying in an RV Park just outside Huntington.  It is a skydiving airport, but have not seen any planes; probably a weekend thing.  They brag you can drive, fly, or boat here.  We are next to the Ohio River.  Anyway, today we travelled to Point Pleasant about 35 miles northeast of Huntington.  Two events there in recent times kind of put them on the map.

The first was the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December of 1967.  This bridge went over the Ohio River, connecting Ohio and West Virginia.  There were some 35 vehicles on it at the time of collapse.  47 people died, 9 were seriously injured.  The cause was the failure of a suspension component.  The bridge is a suspension bridge like the Mackinaw Bridge, but instead of a really big cable they used what they called a chain suspension.

Envision how a bicycle chain is made.  The failure occured at one of the pivot pin locations.  They referred to it as an eye bar.

This is the end of an eye bar, with the pin used in front.  The failure was actually at the eye, where the pin goes through.  It was felt to be cracked, possibly at the time of construction in 1929.  The load of cars and trucks caused it to fail at the crack.  It was a chain reaction, as now the other eye bars (chain links) could not carry the load, however the others broke in the center, not at the eye.

The small blue tag identifies the link that broke in this model.  At the time the bridge was built it was state of the art, the links were high carbon steel (new material at the time), but they have since determined a cable, like the Big Mac  uses, is stronger.  And, the bridge was built in the days of the Model T and 5000 pound trucks and traffic volume was much lower.  So you have to wonder if it would have failed at some point anyway.  Also wonder if WVDOT and ODOT got sued over it.   

A new bridge was built and in use today.  It is a conventional bridge, not a suspension bridge.

Now the strange part to the story; the Mothman.

In November 1966, thirteen months before the bridge collapsed, two couples travelling in the same car reported seeing a creature similar to the statue they have in a park.   During the year prior to the bridge failure, several Mothman sightings were reported.  The museum has recordings, statements, and newspaper articles about several sightings by people in Point Pleasant.

Several things were a little unexpected in the museum.  There was no “official” connection between the Mothman sightings and the bridge failure.  Secondly, there was a connection made between Mothman and UFO sightings that started in May 1966.  And thirdly, there were sightings of Men In Black in town around this timeframe.  Dan believes MIB are secret, government agents in charge of catching outerspace aliens and taking them to Area 51.

There was also a fair amount of stuff about the movie Mothman Prophecies.  The most surprising was that the whole movie was shot in Kittanning, PA.  No scenes were shot here.  Some of the movie people showed up at at the Mothman statue dedication just after the movie debuted.

Do we believe in Mothman?  Well, after reading the eye witness accounts,  its hard not to believe they saw something.  It is also an interesting coincidence that the sightings ended after the bridge failure.

We finished off the day eating at a really unusual “restaurant.”  Called Hillbilly Hot Dogs, it was not exactly a gourmet restaurant.

All they serve is hot dogs with a variety of fixin’s that make them special.  But its really about the ambience.  We are eating in a school bus.  A very interesting experience.

September 30 & October 1&2 – Willamson and Matewan

We have had a couple of interesting days.  “Home” is Pikeville, KY for the next couple days, but this area is the stompin’ grounds of the Hatfields and McCoys and the home of the Mine Wars.  First, the Mine Wars.  As we told you earlier, the miners began to realize they were in a no win situation.  Why?  Their minimum pay locked them into the mine company.  Even if they wanted to leave there was no where to go.  They were completely in the middle of nothing.  Travel in 1880 to 1920 was all but impossible in Southern West Virginia.   Even if they could leave, the mountains made farming impossible. The miners became depressed, agitated, and frustrated about their living situation.

The mine companies did not want unions, as it would cost them profit, so they hired police to maintain peace by establishing a police state.  They knew the workers were stuck, so they had no incentive to meet worker’s demands.  The workers resorted to violence and the whole thing escalated into a war between the workers / union  and the coal companies and their hired guns.  Matewan was the site of one of the bloody battles.  At the end of the battle, 10 men were dead, 8 police(Baldwin-Felts) hired by the mine company, one miner, and the Matewan mayor.  Nothing was resolved.  Ironically, the first stikes were over working conditions, not pay.  One of the buildings in Matewan still has bullet holes.

More about Matewan shortly.  In Williamston we found a unique building, made of coal.  Appropriately named the Coal House.  If you watch American Pickers, Frank and Mike obtained a couple of H&M artifacts and gave them to the Chamber of Commerce.  While visiting, the City Commissioner introduced himself to Dan.  He was a Hatfield.  In fact during our journey around here, you meet many Hatfield and McCoy relatives.

Back to Matewan.  It lies right on the KY/WV border.  The Tug Fork River forms the border and flows right by Matewan.  Over the years there have been several big floods, so they built a flood wall.  This thing is a work of art!  Along its entire length are murals about the town’s history.

So we walked down to the Tug.  It is a long way down from the foot of the flood wall.  The following pictures illustrate this placid little river.

 

When you look at it and you look up at that wall, you’re thinking, no way!  Well the Tug has over flowed its banks several times and destroyed much of the town, so they built this wall.  In the following picture Dan is pointing to steps representing water levels in three floodings.  They are the top half dozen steps. 

Back to Matewan and the Mine Wars.  The interesting twist, the Chief of Police of Matewan was Sid Hatfield.

He and the Major, Edward Chambers were staunch miner / union supporters.  They were in the Matewan battle, arrested and brought to trial for the deaths of the mine company’s hired police, Baldwin-Felts.  Both were aquitted.  Seeking revenge they were assasinated on the courthouse steps in Welsh by other Baldwin-Felts men when reporting for an indictment of conspiracy.

Hatfield was a local hero and this incident further fanned the flames.  The whole mess really escalated on Blair Mountain when US troops were brought in to stop a miners’ march before reaching Matewan.

So, why the violence in West Virginia?  That’s what we wanted to know.  Other miners were unionized.  Well, the best we can theorize  is the situation got ugly due to the workers untenable position.  They can’t make it on current wages, they can’t leave, and the mine companies were adamant on preserving profits.  Over its course, the Governor failed to resolve it and President Harding did nothing.  Finally 2 events resolved it.  The Depression, which killed demand for coal and as part of his New Deal, FDR signed a law allowing workers’ rights to collective bargaining.

We have spoken to many people during our journey and they are the most friendly, genuine folk you will ever meet.  Many have worked in mines or have family who worked in coal mines.  The jobs are gone.  Most coal produced from here now is exported to Japan and China.  We understand that every coal burning powerplant in the US today can be upgraded with equipment that will meet current air quality standards.  It is a plentiful, cheap, domestic source.  Instead, we are chasing windmills and solar panels.

Now for our pursuit of the Hatfield and McCoy story.  In this neck of the woods, everything is Hatfield this, or McCoy that.  The Feud started near the end of the Civil War and lasted until about 1891.  Again we had questions,  why did this feud draw national attention?  The area of the Feud was the border of WV and KY.  At that time state extradition was not thought to be legal, so cross border raids by each family followed by escape back into their state allowed them to avoid arrest.   The whole thing reached national attention with the news media and at one point the state militias and Supreme Court got involved. 

Both states have markers designating various sites involved in the Feud.  But our most interesting experience was in search of a general store that Devil Anse Hatfield frequented and even slept there.  We had driven up and down this little narrow blacktop road looking for this store.  If you watch American Pickers on History, they visited here and obtained a summons and ledger that involved Devil Anse.  So we finally stop and ask a guy who’s chatting with a couple of other fellas.  At first he trying to tell us how to get there, then said “Foller Me, I’ll sho ya!” so he drove a couple miles to a side road that we needed to take.  “ I grew up in that holler there,”  as he pointed down the road.  Awesome, but it gets better.

So we park by the store and a women, a little younger than us, walks over from the neighboring house and asks if we would like to go in and see the store.  Her name is Goldie and she owned the store.  Yes, we answered, so over she came, unlocked the store, and gave us a tour. 

The inside was a time capsule from nearly a hundred years ago.

The bed was used by Devil Anse when he overnighted here.  The dresses and clothes are in pictures that Goldie has of the Hatfield family.

What a special time we had.  Goldie was so sweet.  We also met her family before we left.  We couldn’t believe how friendly and at home she made us feel.  It is typical of all the folks we have met here.

Well this post has rambled on for sometime, so we’ll close here.  We are nearing the end of our adventure.  Tomorrow we head to Huntington for a couple of days before heading home.

Sepember 28, 2016–New River Gorge

Today we headed north to a few more coal sites, but first we stopped at New River Gorge.  Despite the name, the New River is actually one of the oldest rivers in the US.  It carved out about 900 feet of gorge during its 65 million years and at one time flowed into the Mississippi River.  The last glacier buried the most northern parts, so now it empties into the Ohio River.

Yes, it flows north.  We are across some Eastern Continental Divide, we first learned of it while in Maryland and all rivers on this side flow north.  We have no idea where that Divide line runs.  The Potomac, for example flows northwest to southeast.  It is weird though to see the New River flowing north.

The noteworthy thing around here is the New River Gorge Bridge.  Quite an engineering marvel.  Built in 1977, it’s 3030 feet long and the longest, single span bridge.  West Virginia is so proud of it that it is on the West Virginia quarter.

The gorge is pretty, but doesn’t knock your socks off.  As you can see water levels are down maybe 3 feet, which likely detracts from its beauty.

We made a few stops to more coal heritage sites and learned a little more about coal.  There are two types of coal; “hard” coal or Anthracite and “soft” or Bituminous.  Hard coal is cleaner to handle and not brittle.  It is preferred where clean burn is necessary, but it is hard to light and keep lit.  Bituminous is pretty much the opposite and has given coal the bad name.  Coal quality impacts BTU, smoke, ash, and sulfur.  West Virginia’s coal is advertised as smokeless.

WV Coal has more carbon and less ash, making it most desireable.  I wonder if that is what is used for the Cass train?

The next picture is of a tipple.  This a semi modern gizmo (1920s) that transports coal to a waiting RR coal hopper car.  We found this one in Nuttallburg.  This mine is located in the New River Gorge.

This is the conveyor system that leads to the mine entrance.  The coal is transported from the mine to the tipple via this conveyor, then to the hopper car.  Now the interesting part.  Henry Ford leased this mine between 1920 and 1928.  He installed this tipple and conveyor to boost production.  Due to the brittle nature of the WV coal,  if a conveyor belt was used, the vibration would have broken down the coal and caused a high loss rates off the belt.  A belt is also failure prone.  So Henry used a trough with a disk and cable system to move the coal down the conveyor.

We thought it amazing he would come to WV for his coal.  It must have been good stuff.  He abandoned the mine after 1928 due to problems with the railroad.  The gorge was a pinch point for moving coal out of it.  Too many mines, not enough track.

The road getting us to this place was a real stinker.  Rough, narrow, tight turns, and a big embankment on one side.  You prayed you would not meet an oncoming vehicle.  Fortunately, we were lucky!

September 26 & 27, 2016–Beckley and Coal History

The scenery in West Virginia is awesome with mountain views in almost any direction; that’s good and bad.  The bad is just about anywhere you want to go, you’re going to be driving a 2 lane, often narrow, blacktop road.  So distances here are measured in time, not miles.  We are in pursuit of learning about the coal industry here which dates back to the 1870s.  Coal fueled the post Civil War Industrial Revolution and West Virginia played a huge role.  Beckley is in the center of the coal heritage trail.

A little history.  Much of West Virginia was farmland in the early 1800s, settled by immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Eastern Europe.  It was always known that West Virginia had an abundance of coal, but it was used only locally as there was no way to transport it from the region.  Then the railroads came to WV, and now they had a way to get it to market.  Coal mining took off and many of the farmers left their farms to work in the coalfields.  Farming was tough around here and many were on the brink of losing their farms.  Mining offered steady work with a regular wage.  They saw it as a way to create a better living for their families and a good future as coal mining was growing.  Jobs were so plentiful, they even encouraged friends and relatives to come to the US to share in this good fortune.

Population exploded with all the new miners and new mines opening up.  Well, it was not the paradise they hoped for.  The work was hard and dangerous.    To accomodate the huge influx of workers, the mine companies built housing they rented to the miners.  They built “towns” or coal camps that included everything the miner and his family needed; a school, church, doctor services, and a general store in each of these camps.  No need to leave and travel many miles for these amenities.  Sounds like paradise right?  Well, not so much.  The average life expentancy was 40 years.  Usually they were killed on the job or black lung got them.

The coal companies paid workers in script that could only be used in the company store.  So, the miner was paid based on the coal he produced at 20 cents per ton.  A miner could produce between 10 and 12 tons per day.   They were paid every 2 weeks.  An automatic deduction was made for the rent, plus the cost of goods purchased in the company store during prior pay periods. These items consisted of food, clothing, doctor services, tools, black powder, helmets, etc.  The companies charged high prices in the company store for these items.  If the miner did not have enough money left he could borrow it to buy these things, thus running a debt that would be paid for with next paycheck.  Yes, the “birth” of a company credit card.

Think about the song, “Sixteen Tons”, it pretty much tells the story.  It was a losing proposition.  Once the miner’s debt got high enough and he could not pay it off, the mine companies had him.  This went on for several years until the miners realized they were in a no win situation.  There were attempts at work stoppages by a few miners that were met with immediate eviction from their homes.  These workers were made examples of so others did not follow.

We’ll cover the union push later when we get to Matewan.  West Virginia has established what they call the Coal Heritage Trail and as we said, Beckley is roughly in the center.  We have travelled the southern portion that runs down to Bluefield and visited the Coal Exhibition Mine in Beckley.  First the mine.

The local funeral home did that statue.  Guess they were showing appreciation for the steady business the miners provided.

The mine in Beckley was a small family operatation.  They moved to another location and Beckley bought it for tours and education about coal mining.  At the back of the drift is the coal vein that is about 40 inches tall.  Most of the mines were less than 4 feet in height, because the veins of coal were only that wide.  Why waste the effort moving all that rock?  This mine was enlarged to accommodate our tour tram.  The men worked squatting or lying on their side.  Even today these openings are that small.

This an example of the script the workers were paid.  Each mine’s script was unique, even the shape of the hole was part of the identification.  This is a $5.00 dollar piece.  Today, there appears to be a collector’s market for these things.

This is a company store.  It has seen restoration back in the 90s, but it’s currently vacant.

As you would surmise, mine owners were West Virginia’s millionaires.  They seemed to all settle in Bramwell.  We think because of train access in Bramwell.  The homes for the most part are restored to their early 1850s appearance.

When you compare this to what the workers lived in, you can appreciate the workers’ frustration.   The owners put up the capital taking a financial risk, but you’ve got to wonder; would it kill them to let the workers earn enough to pay their necessities and own a little smaller house?

Tomorrow we head toward Ansted.

September 23, 2016–Cass Scenic Railroad

Today we drove about 50 miles south to Cass, WV to ride the vintage Cass Scenic Railroad.  Some of you heard us talk about whether to take the Cass RR, or the Tygart Flyer out of Elkins.  The Tygart Flyer is pulled by diesel locomotives and you ride in an enclosed pullman car with buffet lunch and drinks.  Or you can ride on the Cass Scenic Train, which is pulled by a steam engine.  You ride in a coverted, open air, lumber flat car and are served a sandwich.  Both are 4 hours.

Dan wanted Cass, Lynn wanted Tygart.  Well, as you can tell, Dan won!  We obtained seats in the last car, furthest from the loco, and we brought cushions to make  the ride more comfortable.  Hey, you sometimes need a little compromise,  although having a sweetie for a wife helps.   Why did Dan want the Cass Scenic RR?  Where else can you ride a steam powered train and to top it off, the engine is a Shay. 

The Shay was invented in Michigan specifically for logging.  We first learned of the Shay in Cadillac where one is located in the city park.  It has a relatively short wheelbase to handle sharp curves and has a lots of power for moving log cars.  Its design incorperates 3 vertical cylinders, with the crank turning a drive shaft that drives all wheels.   Other locos had 2 horizontal pistons and often some gearing.  The Shay had smaller wheels giving it a lot of pulling power, but top speed was about 12 mph.  It averaged 5 to 6 mph during the trip and handled a section with a 9% grade.

 

The three vertical cylinders are  visible in this picture.  The 22 mile journey took us to Bald Knob, elevation 4700 feet, third highest point in West Virginia.  Views from their observation deck were very pretty.

It did not take long to see why steam was replaced by diesel.  This thing was noisey and bellowed smoke that lingered for quite sometime. 

During our journey we stopped for water.  It uses 2000 gallons per trip.

Logging was big in West Virginia and rail, along with the Shay, played a big role.  They have the largest collection of working Shay engines, including the largest ever built weighing in at 162 tons. 

Cass was a lumber and wood pulp mill town.  But just like we found last year, new technology took over and the lumber and wood pulp business dried up in the 60s.  Cass has reinvented itself as a historic tourist attraction.  The Cass Scenic Railroad is now a state park.

It was interesting to step back nearly 100 years in time to experience this.