America's Byways® Press Room
September 17, 2007 - Tom Bodett Interviews Christy Bailey of Coal Heritage Trail

Thanks for downloading this podcast. What you’re about to hear is a true story—a story of American culture, history, and beauty. I’m Tom Bodett, and this is America’s Byways.

My name is Christy Bailey. I’m with the Coal Heritage Trail in Southern West Virginia. Until coal mining started in the early 1900s, perhaps, West Virginia…Southern West Virginia was…there were mountain farms, subsistence farmers, very rugged country, rugged mountains, narrow valleys, but when the coal mining boom started, well, they definitely needed people to mine coal.

So, the coal companies started recruiting people at Ellis Island to come there - huge populations of Italians (that’s the largest population,) but also Hungarians and Eastern European folks of all sorts. African-American people came from the South into the area, because they knew there was work there. There was coal mining, there was railroading. So we had a tremendously diverse population, and lots of those streets you can still walk down, and see those faces as you go.

In coal camps, the families tended to cluster together, so we had, [for example,] the Italian end, and the Black end of the coal camp. And so they really retained a lot of that culture, and, in fact, to this day they do. As those folks came in, they brought their own music with them. So there was kind of a merging of the different sorts of music.

[There were] different sorts of food, too. I mean, it was always fascinating that, people [who] lived in the mountains did one thing with corn meal, but people that came from Italy did a totally different thing with corn meal. There were kind of differences in the way people cooked. Pepperoni Rolls were created in our area because that was a way the Italian miners could take their Italian food with them in their dinner buckets, into the coal mines. So…that was created in the area.

[We] have a little town named Coalwood, and it’s where Homer Hickam wrote the October Sky stories. It’s where Homer Hickam grew up, and he’s written the Coalwood Way and October Sky about life growing up in a coal camp. And when you stand on that street in that little community, it’s like you have stepped back into the 1930s. The company store is there, the clubhouse is there, the church is there, [and] the offices are there. The coal camp houses are there, although they’ve changed as people have added on to them and done things to them. But…you have really stepped back in time when you stand on that street in Coalwood.

Another place that I really love is a town called Thurmond. And for many, many years, the only way you could get [there was] by railroad. It was a railroad town, and there was a hotel there that had a 14-year poker game. Thurmond was a little bit of a wild town, actually. So they had a poker game that didn’t stop for 14 years, with people going in and out of the game. The people would come in on the train, and somebody would leave, and they’d take their place, and the game kept going. So…it was a great little town.

Of course, the New River Gorge…is on our byway. And the views are just completely incredible up there. That region was, was really where…the fuel that helped make America great came from—still does, as a matter of fact. And…the Industrial Revolution was fueled by coal from that region. So it’s an important national story.

We’ve just heard another story from America’s Byways. I’m Tom Bodett. Travel well, act right, safe home.