Arista is an unincorporated community and coal town in Mercer County, West Virginia, four miles north of Matoaka.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arista,_West_Virginia) It was the site of Weyanoke Coal & Coke Company's Arista mine, owned and operated by the Patterson Family of Dayton, Ohio.  The mine opened in 1914. (http://shinbrierwv.com/mcdowell__mercer_counties_coal_disasters)

Arista means "the best" in Italian.  By 1927, Arista paid 210 employees, and in 1944 the population was 586.  Three hundred of these residents were company employees. (Bluefield Daily Telegraph, July 6, 2003, Arista among Mercer County's coal communities)

Arista was originally operated by SJ Patterson Pocahontas Company from 1916 to 1922, and later by the Weyanoke Coal Company off and on from 1923 until it ceased production in 1960.  It was mined by the C&M Coal Company in the late 1960s. (http://www.coalcampusa.com/sowv/flattop/mercer/mercer.htm) The town has vanished - not even a chimney remains.

The S. J. Paterson Pocahontas Company originally took out a coal lease of 1,146 acres on May 19, 1914.  On March 17, 1923, the coal lease and mining complex was transferred to Weyanoke Coal & Coke Company who operated the mine until 1960.  Then in 1962, the Arista Coal Company operated the mine there, mining an additional 91,400 tons of coal before shutting down in 1966.  Today, not a single structure remains of that community or its mining complex.    

Weyanoke Coal & Coke Company Arista Operation , Arista,WV