Coalwood, West Virginia

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Coalwood is an unincorporated coal mining town in McDowell County, West Virginia, USA. The coal mines there reached their peak sometime in the 1960s and finally shut down production in the 1980s. The town is the setting of the best-selling memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam and the movie October Sky based on the book.

1 History of Coalwood
- 1.1 Early Coalwood
- 1.2 Coalwood afterwards
2 External links

[edit] History of Coalwood

[edit] Early Coalwood

"From Rocket Boys" Coalwood was founded by George L. Carter in 1887. He came on the back of a mule and eventually found rich seams of bituminous coal, and bought the land from its owners. He constructed a mine, calling it the Carter Coal Company and built houses, a schoolhouse, a company store, a church and many more. Carter hired a dentist and doctor to provide service to his miners. At first, the mine was extremely dangerous, there were no shafts for ventilation, they had to shovel the coal, and mules were used to haul out the coal, but after World War I, he hired a man who the coalwood people called the Captain. He modernized the company, using machines called continuous miners to bring down the coal instead of people shoveling it, the mules were replaced by electric motors, and he installed shafts. He also added indoor plumbing, getting the water supply from an ancient lake below the mine.

When a union was set up in Coalwood in the late 1940's, Carter started suffering. When strikes came up, navy soldiers were called in and forced Carter to sell out. The new owner was a steel mill in Ohio and they changed the mine's name to Olga Coal Company.

[edit] Coalwood afterwards

Though mining became easy, it became hazardous because now more dust erupted from the coal and black lung disease became more of a problem, especially for the later mine foreman and superintendent, Homer Hickam, Sr., the father of Homer Hickam, Jr. A miner who gets the disease must quit the mine, but for Homer Sr. he didn't quit, and kept it a secret. Homer Sr. starts having a hard time when Homer Jr. starts launching his rockets, so he moves them to what the Rocket Boys calls Cape Coalwood. Problems got worse for the company and the union when the steel company sold all Coalwood Houses except for the Hickam houseold. Soon afterwards, another a union strike started up, but was settled just before Homer won the science fair. Homer Sr. continued to work in the mine until his forced retirement at the age of 65, but he stayed on as a consultant until, soon after, his lungs gave out and he moved away to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with his wife, where he died in 1989. That same year, the mine shut down, was filled up with water, and shafts turned off. People still live in Coalwood, but have to depend on other jobs to make ends meet.