With railroads came thousands of workers looking to make a new life in the coalfields. In the late 1800's and well into the mid-1900's, many Appalachian miners lived in company towns called "Coal Camps".
Mine operators built company-owned towns along railroad lines to support the huge numbers of workers arriving daily. A large percentage of the coal miner's wages was returned to the coal company in exchange for housing, tools, food and other basic expenses. These towns generally consisted of miners' homes, a school, church, post office, and company store. These simple homes were uniform in design and, depending on the company, sometimes all painted the same color throughout the town!
Life in these camps was dependent on the coal seam's production, and in the early 30's an estimated 465 company towns existed in West Virginia. Over 90 percent of all miners lived in these company-owned camps. Here miners enjoyed many modern amenities unheard of before coal's discovery including electric power, public libraries, schools, doctors and dentists.
Another important place in the coal camp community was the baseball diamond. Games were played on Sunday, which was the only day in the week that the coal miners did not work.
In 1930, Kingston coal camp had a population of over 1200 people, with a variety of ethnicities including people from Canada, Lithuania, Argentina, Russia, Austria, Scotland, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Romania, Italy and Mexico. The Westerly coal camp had a population of over 660 including full-blooded Cherokees, African Americans and immigrants from many nationalities. Most of these once populated and flourishing coal camps have disappeared from the landscape with little remaining evidence of their existence.
The Paint Creek Scenic Trail is included within the National Coal Heritage Area.
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