Visiting Beckley's Exhibition Coal Mine

Located in the middle of a neighborhood that wasn't really designed to be all that residential sits a real treasure, the Exhibition Coal Mine. Beckley is a hub set in the midst of some major coal fields and has captured some of their history at this site.

The church in the background of this image is just one of several buildings that are now located on site to help tell the tale of the coal miners of the mid to late 1900s. It's a little surprising how much coal mining has changed in this most recent lifetime.

Once again, it was pouring rain as Linda and I moved from building to building. We ducked into a house and met what looked to be three generations of coal miner's daughters. The grandmother, mother, and daughter were gathered around the kitchen table chatting and working on some task of the day. Grandmother showed us around the three rooms and explained a little about domestic life at the mine. These structures were the property of the mining company and home to complete families, sometimes pretty large families.

This is a pretty rough mashup of three photos I took but, as I sit and try to tell you about it, it's about the only way to convey just how small the coal miner's shanty actually was. Generally the home of an unmarried man, it could also be home to a man who's family lived outside the company town. It covered the basic needs of a coal miner: a place to eat and sleep. Just look at all that closet space! I really have to suspect that this is a very dressed up version of these little homes. In reality, I'm guessing they often were only a little cleaner than the men at the end of a shift.

Besides the church, family home, and shanty, there are the school and supervisor's house. We got to look around at the supervisor's and saw a few familiar items. While not actually a normal part of the supervisor's house, they have two rooms set aside to represent the post office and barber shop.

It was about time to enter the mine so we headed down to the mine entrance. Soon we were joined by Joe, our retired coal miner guide, and a group of five, apparently three generations of one family. A mine train was waiting to take us inside. We all loaded on and headed into the mine. As you would expect, there's not a lot of headroom inside a mine; why dig out more room than you need, right?

Our first stop was only about fifty feet inside the mine. Here, Joe tested us by turning off the lights in the mine; better to find out right away who's not comfortable with enclosed and potentially absolutely dark settings. He told us about the seam of coal still visible within the walls of the mine. He also told about the ongoing issue of water in the mines. He explained that it's generally not cost effective to get the water completely out of the mine, rather, you just move it from where it is to where it's not in your way. I've tried that form of housekeeping with only limited success.

As we went from stop to stop, we saw first hand one of the one ton coal carts that Joe filled by hand at the start of his career. He told how some miners would pull tricks to claim a cart filled by another miner and how they put a stop to that kind of thing. Joe also told about the valuable water containers that the miners took with them each day. It was also not uncommon for someone to take a drink out of another man's water from time to time; one of the countermeasures was to leave you false teeth in your water pail.

Joe was a wealth of great stories and hands on information about life as a miner. We soon learned that we had a retired mine inspector on the tour as well. The two had worked at least one mine in common during their careers. They shared interesting perspectives as they reminisced about one thing after the other. It really added a little bonus to the tour to have these two giving point / counterpoint.

By the time we were done, we felt we'd had a very personal peek into life in and around the mines... by many people who'd lived it! That's a pretty special experience in my book.