Goodwill Company Store

The top photograph shows the Goodwill Coal & Coke Company store as it was in 1888. Philip Goodwill is the sixth person standing from the left. At this time (1888) Philip and his wife, Phoebe Douty Goodwill were living in the upstairs part off the store.

Another view of the Goodwill Company Store is from January 1930 a little over a year before it was destroyed by fire in 1931. When Justus Collins was forming the Winding Gulf Collieries Corporation he bought the Goodwill Coal Company from Philip Goodwill in 1905 and this building was then used for a recreation center. A theater, barber shop, doctor's office, and shoe shop were on the ground floor. A dance hall, pool room, and a room with a large floor model radio for people to relax and listen to their favorite radio dramas were upstairs. Rhonda Brown was the town barber and Bunk Bailey ran the theater for Philip Goodwill Jr. ( 1891 - Unknown) who owned several theaters in West Virginia until he sold them and bought a hotel in Williamson.

Above Photographs and text furnished by Ken Bowen, Bluewell, WV.

Philip P. Goodwill Sr. was the son of Robert Goodwill who secured the lease of the famous Flat-Top coal field in WV. His son, Philip was born in Douphin County Pennsylvania. He came to southern WV in 1887 to the Flat-Top coal field to assume the management of the Goodwill Coal & Coke Company. He married Phoebe Douty in 1887. Immediately thereafter he located to Bramwell, WV, where he lived until his death. He built his wife the historic Goodwill House, now listed on the National Register of Historic Homes. He was a very influential man in mercer County and was a member of the Board of Education. He was largely instrumental for the building of the existing Bramwell Grade School building.

Information extracted from Marth Jane Becker's book,"Bramwell... The Diary Of A Millionaire Coal Town".