In 1742, John Peter Salley took an exploratory trip across the Allegheny Mountains and reported an outcropping of coal along a tributary of the Kanawha River. He and his companions named this tributary the Coal River, and his report became the first reference to coal in what is today West Virginia.

The 1886 Preston County Coal Mine Disaster

by Robert M. Moore

On 21 January 1886, 39 coal miners lost their lives at the Orrel Coal Company in Newburg, Preston Co. WV. At 2:45 that Thursday afternoon an explosion of a gas called fire damp, resulted in the worst disaster in Preston County history.

The following is an extraction of the names of the victims as well as other useful genealogical information taken from the Preston County Journal of January 28, February 4 and 11 of 1886.

THE BUFFALO CREEK FLOOD DISASTER, FEBRUARY 26, 1972

Buffalo Creek consists of about 16 small communities. A few of them are Lorado, Becco, Latrobe, Saunders, Pardee, Stowe, Crites, Kistler, Braeholm....... Buffalo Creek winds it way down thru these communities and empties into the Guyandotte River at the edge of the town of Man.

On a rainy Saturday morning, February 26, 1972, 125 people; men, women and children lost their lives in the Buffalo Creek Flood Disaster. About 1,000 homes were destroyed and 4,000 people were left homeless.

By Johnny M Vergis
Special Thanks to Goldenseal Magazine

Let me take you to my hometown, Edwight, Raleigh County, back in the 1940's when I was growing up there. Let's look down from Turkey Rock on the mountain above town. There are coal miners walking to and from between the bathhouse and the company store, children playing, and womenfolk moving about. What a bustlng place my town is.

The Beginnings of Coal Development
Photo of Early Coal Fleet
From the Semi-Centennial History of West Virginia, by James Callahan, 1913.

Notes on Coal, Oil and Gas Development By the Editor.

The coal mining industry in West Virginia Is still in its infancy. Many pioneer miners, who have watched it grow and expand from very small beginnings, are still living. There was no mining on an extensive scale before the civil war.

People have been mining since the eighteenth century, and compared to that time period; the lot of coal miners has only recently improved. Miners have lived with dangers the rest of us can't even imagine: slag falls, explosions, fires, gases, cave-ins or being crippled for life either from broken bones or the 'black-lung' disease that coal miners still aquire from breathing in coal dust. And it was not just in America, as they were mining for coal in Europe before they began here in the states.