Southern WV Coal

Original Map is from Norfolk & Western Railroad, Coal and Coke Operations In The Pocahontas Flat-Top Coal Field Source: Ninth Annual Report Of The Board Of Directors Of The Norfolk & Western Railroad Company To The Shareholders, For the year ending December 31st., 1889. Allen, Lane & Scott Printers, Philadelphia. ©1890. Information about Buckeye Coal & Coke Co. has been overlaid on a selected part of the original map. Original Map was Submitted by: Amy E. Armstrong - January, 2001

The Buckeye & Coke Coal Company mines were established in 1886 along the north end of Simmons Creek, in the general area where the Wm. Booth Co. Coke Ovens are shown on this 1889 map. Simmons Creek as shown on this map ran North from Freeman and split at the entrance to Buckeye Hollow.The identfied mine at the 5 mile point ( shown by the green dot ) that is just above the Booth Coke Ovens is shown in the same general location of the Buckeye Coal & Coke Company second mine. Buckeye Coal Company operated two mines in this general area during the early 1900s and through about 1940. The first of two mines that Buckeye Coal Company worked was close to the bottom of the valley and the No. 2 tipple. The two blue dots mark the general location of the Buckeye Tipples.

No one knows how the name Buckeye came about. Perhaps the hollow off Simmons Creek , where the tipple and mine were located, held that derviation prior to the mining activities. When Buckeye opened in 1886 it was the fifth coal mining operation in the area. The Buckeye Mine operation was the first to have coke ovens in West Virginia. The remains of some of these ovens are visible from Rt.52 near Buckeye Hollow. The original Buckeye No. 1 Tipple was located along Simmons Creek at the mouth of Buckey Hollow. Both of the Buckeye Tipples are featured on the Historic Bramwell site.

About seven company houses were located across the railroad tracks along side the No. 2 Buckeye Tipple as shown on the map. Three more houses stood 1/4 mile north of these houses. From the map one can see this area at the north end of one branch of Simmons Creek that orignated in Buckeye Hollow. In the early 1940s these houses were all vacated and some of them were torn down. Lumber from which these houses were built was used in the construction of new houses that were located outside the buckeye Coal Camp. One of these houses can be seen from Rt. 52 going south from Bramwell to Bluefield, WV. It is about half way up Pinnacle Mountain.