WV Trip, Day Three, Coal Country

Ward, Wally, Theo, and I are vacationing for a week in southern West Virginia.

In case your interested, here's what we've done so far. Day One, Day Two 

As an aside: There are many things that are making this vacation a good one. We work well as a group in making decisions and sharing tasks. Two is the beautiful scenery. And three is great weather with temperatures in the 50s-70s with little to no rain. Not to say that everything is perfect, but, hey, we're on vacation so we're not going to let the little annoyances bother us. 😀

Our destination Friday morning was the Exhibition Coal Mine in Beckley, WV. Coal has shaped a great part of the history and economy in this area, so it seemed only fitting that they would open an exhibition coal mine here. The mine was originally a small family mine that supplied coal for local residents to heat and cook with. It operated around the turn of the last century and eventually closed. The town of Beckley bought it and developed it as a tourist attraction. The shaft of the original mine was only 4' tall at its highest and mining was done without machines. Of course, it has been expanded in all directions and has an open-track car that takes tourists inside. Even with the higher ceilings and wider shafts, they always make a stop a little way into the mine in case anyone is feeling claustrophobic. 

Here, our guide, Clacey, was showing us different light sources and gas detectors used throughout the years in the mines. All the tours are led by coal miners. Clacey had worked in the mines 47 years before he retired, and he was able to give personal insights as well as interesting anecdotes from his experiences.

Coal has been an important part of West Virginia's history and economy.  It has provided many jobs--but jobs that are dangerous with long term health effects. This exhibition mine gives a small glimpse into that.

Associated with the mine tour were examples from a company coal town. Various structures were moved from around the area to this location for the museum. We toured a school, church, bachelors house, family house, and a superintendents house. We were lucky that we were the only ones in the houses at the time and we had the tour guides all to ourselves. Below are a couple of things that caught my interest during our touring.

The superintendent's house had a "fancy" washing machine.
The regular miner's house had a washboard and some wringers.

The company barbershop. That's a hair perm machine (circa 1930).
Can you imagine getting curls in your hair with that?

In addition to the coal mine and company town, there was a Youth Museum and Mountain Homestead. We toured the homestead which consisted of  log buildings from the 1800s. These buildings were also relocated from the local community. We toured a home, moonshine shed, weaving room, blacksmith shop, school, general store, livery stable. Once again, we were the only people there, so we had the guides all to ourselves.

Here is Roger showing us a moonshine operation.
He was a man full of stories, both from the past and present.

We spent longer than we had anticipated at the coal mine complex, but we agreed that it was a very interesting experience and worth the adjustment to our schedule. Next we headed to Grandview. Grandview used to be a state park, but is now part of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. 

Grandview has a great view of a horseshoe bend in the New River and ridges beyond. Ward took a panoramic video that's below. It gives you a better idea of what we were actually seeing.

 

Still wanting to get in at least a short hike for the day,
we took the Tunnel Trail at Grandview.

Even though the tunnel part of the trail was blocked off,
we enjoyed being among the rocks and trees.

After Grandview, we headed back to our Vrbo for dinner. Theo baked us a pot pie he had brought from home. Then still feeling the need for a little more walking for the day, Ward and I took a walk along a local rail trail.

There were parks along the trail as well as the old train depot.

 Back at the Vrbo for the night, Ward finished this 750 piece puzzle he had been working on, while I worked on this blog post trying not to curse too much. The internet went down, Google and Microsoft were not playing well with each other, and the pictures were not cooperating. Remember how I said that I was on vacation and the little annoyances weren't bothering me. I lied.

Until next time...