Eckman is an unincorporated community in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. Eckman is located along U.S. Route 52 to the west of the city of Keystone. Eckman was formerly known as Shawnee Camp. At Shawnee Camp, miner John Hardy reportedly murdered a man in a gambling dispute. His death was memorialized in the popular folk song, "John Hardy."
While Eckman, West Virginia is a relatively small town, it's important to remember that African American history is deeply intertwined with the history of West Virginia as a whole, including its coal mining heritage. Eckman and nearby communities like Keystone and Beckley were heavily impacted by the coal industry, which attracted African Americans seeking employment.
Eckman Coal Mining History
By Buddy French
Eckman, West Virginia was founded in 1892 shortly after the N&W
railroad had arrived as it pushed westward with its expansion. Eckman
was one of the larger industrialized coal mining areas in the Elkhorn Valley
of McDowell County. This was because there were three separate coal
companies operating in the same geographical area. The community was
named for John W. Eckman who was the General Manager of the Pulaski
Iron Company's "pig iron" furnace in Pulaski, Virginia. His Pulaski Iron
Company mines in Eckman began production in March of 1893 and had
260 coke ovens. Before the coal was shipped by rail to the iron ore furnace
in Virginia, it was first baked in ovens for up to forty-eight hours. The
baking process turned the coal into coke, which then became 95% carbon.
The coke was then reheated at the iron furnace and is used to melt iron ore
in a process called smelting. The Shawnee Coal & Coke Company also built a large mining
operation at Eckman and began shipping coal in April of 1893. This coal
company also had a large bank of 188 coke ovens for coking coal. The
third mining operation at Eckman was the Eureka Coal & Coke Company.
It began production in 1894 and constructed 200 coke ovens and was
closed down in 1928. These three coalcompanies in Eckman were mining
in the Pocahontas No.3 coal seam that averaged about seven feet in
thickness. All three coal companies were taken over by the Pocahontas
Fuel Company in 1920 but were operated under their original company
names as subsidiary companies. By 1945, all the Pocahontas Fuel Company mines operating at Eckman in No.3 coal seam had ceased
operations. Today, only a handful of the hundreds of original coal company
homes still exist in Eckman. But for several years now, there has been a
rebirth in the mining industry. Coal storage bens, and a railroad loadout facility have been built at Eckman to handle coal being mined from nearby
mountaintop removal mine sites.
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