McDowell, WV Story

MCDOWELL COAL TOWN , WV STORY

This was the McDowell Coal & Coke Company store at McDowell, WV as it appeared ca. 1914 Photo courtesy of ERCA.

This was the second and more modern tipple shown here at McDowell that replaced the original coal tipple. The McDowell Coal & Coke Company had expanded its coal acreage and opened a second mine that required a fifteen-hundred-foot-long tram road that enabled coal to be dumped through this tipple. When this photo was taken in 1934, the coke ovens had been shut down the mines were working out and preparing to shut down after forty-two years of production.

McDowell Coal & Coke Company mine locomotive. Photo courtesy of ERCA.

This was just a small portion of the McDowell coal camp community ca. 1915. At one time the community contained over one hundred homes. The McDowell Coal & Coke Company store can be seen in the center of the photo with the Superintendent's home seen at the upper left. The community company store belonging to the Arlington Coal & Coke Company can be seen on the upper right. Photo courtesy of ERCA.