Big Stick Coal Camp - Extinct

Big Stick, WV was a mining community owned by the Pemberton Coal and Coke Co. The town was named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt who believed in walking softly and carrying a "big stick".  In 1942 Lillybrook Coal Co. took over operations. There were schools for white and black kids, and a company store. Mark Twain High School was known as the Authors and excelled in football, basketball, and baseball. The mines closed in 1951, and the community was gradually abandoned throughout the 1950s, with the last family moving out in 1960. Around this time photographer Earl Palmer took this picture of the few company houses remaining in the abandoned coal camp of Big Stick. (courtesy of Virginia Tech Imagebase)

Today these tipple foundations are some of the only evidence of the mining camp named Big Stick. (January 2002 photo)

Work Cited:

http://www.coalcampusa.com/sowv/gulf/gulf_creek/winding_gulf_creek.htm

http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Fall99/marktwainhs.html

Would a Sane Person Be a Coal Miner?

After listening to a college professor describe what is involved in mining coal underground, I wonder why anyone would do it. Working in an environment with lung-threatening dust, life-threatening machinery, and with potential explosions is not my idea of a reasonable occupation. Working in a crouch or on your knees with 30 pounds of equipment makes the whole scenario seem like the old USSR's gulag system.