Tucked away under the dense canopy of McDowell County, West Virginia, lies the forgotten Prunty Trade School.
Category: Appalachia
The drive along Zenith Road to the unincorporated community of Zenith, West Virginia is a step back into time.
Work is progressing on the stabilization of the shuttered Sweet Springs Resort in eastern West Virginia.
Charcoal timber, iron ore, and limestone supplied material for numerous furnaces that produced pig iron, munitions, and tools in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. One of the most preserved is the Buckeye Furnace near Wellston, Ohio. The Buckeye Furnace was financed by the Newkirk, Daniels & Company and constructed by Thomas Price in 1851. It initially produced 7½ tons of iron per day, operating 42 weeks out of the year. Output was later increased to 12 tons of iron per day. The furnace was sold to H.S. Bundy in 1862, the Perry Austin & Company in 1864, and the Buckeye Furnace Company in 1867 and was operated until 1894.
Between 1922 and 1923, the Virginian Railway laid down what would become the Glen Rogers Branch, a 15-mile track carved into the rugged landscapes of West Virginia.
The American Lung Association was formed in 1904 in response to the epidemic of tuberculosis, a serious infectious bacterial disease that was the leading cause of death in the United States. Commonly referred to as consumption, tuberculosis was characterized by fatigue, sweats, and general wasting of the patient. There was no reliable treatment for the disease. Some doctors prescribed bleeding and purgings while others advised their patients to rest and exercise. Very few recovered and about 450 Americans died of tuberculosis each day. Typically, tuberculosis sanatoriums were privately operated or locally controlled facilities. For Kentucky, Louisville was the only city to take on such a task after they established a tax, levied by the city and county, which enabled the construction of Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatarium in 1909-11. It was followed by Hazelwood Sanatorium, also in Louisville, and Jackson Hill Sanatorium in Paducah. Provisions were also made for tubercular inmates at the Eddyville Penitentiary and the Western State Asylum for the Insane. All of those facilities were designed for incipient cases and those who had a more advanced case of tuberculosis had to seek medical attention in other states if they could afford it. Furthermore, the state institutions could house less than 100 patients altogether. In 1912, the General Assembly of Kentucky established the State Tuberculosis Commission that authorized the construction of specific hospitals for the care and treatment of people affected with tuberculosis. It wasn’t until 1944 when the General Assembly created the State Tuberculosis Hospital Commission and six…
On a sunny afternoon, I explored the remnants of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Lexington Subdivision near Ashland, Kentucky by air. The 109-mile route between Lexington and Ashland had been completed in 1881 by the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Road and its predecessors, including the Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, and the Ashland Coal & Iron Railway. The line eventually fell under the control of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and its successor, the Chessie System. Years of declining traffic caused all but 11 miles of the route to be abandoned by 1985. The remaining portion of the Lexington Subdivision between Ashland and Rush was left in place to serve Kentucky Electric Steel at Coalton, brick kilns at Princess, and an Armco pipe fabrication shop at Summit. The Big Run regional landfill, first proposed in Coalton in the 1990s, was constructed between 2001-04. Originally proposed to collect only 7,000 tons of trash over its lifetime, the landfill’s plan was amended to allow for as much as 43 million tons of trash from New York and New Jersey to be accepted by rail. To accommodate the heavier, taller railcars, a three-track yard was constructed at Coalton, welded rail was installed on curves, and the Ashland and Princess tunnels were enlarged to accommodate the taller cars. By 2013, Big Run had become the state’s largest landfill and one of the biggest in the nation, accepting more than 3,500 tons of waste per day. The Lexington Subdivision,…
often passed by an abandoned roadside curiosity in southern West Virginia for years. During a Sunday drive through the countryside with my girlfriend, I decided to pull off the road and check out a rambling collection of five buildings.
I had expected to come across a waterfall or two along a road that was aptly named Falls Run Road, but instead, I came across a beautiful 1969 Chevrolet C10 step side pickup truck. Based on the license plate, it has not been registered since 1990.
People always seem to gravitate toward the latest “Instagram” hotspot in West Virginia, but there is so much to discover—sometimes even alongside the road!
A deeply overcast morning provided the perfect setting for aerials of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, later known as the Weston State Hospital, in Weston, West Virginia.
Imagine standing in the heart of the Pocahontas Coalfield region of southwest West Virginia, surrounded by the rugged topography of the mountains. Amidst this landscape lies the abandoned Algoma Company Store and Offices.
Tucked away inside an abandoned and collapsing funeral home in the coalfields of West Virginia is a beautiful 1963 Chevrolet Impala. Based on the license plate, it has not been registered since 1989.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, West Virginia had thousands of schools that were gradually closed through consolidations. The isolated Prosperity School atop Great Flat Top Mountain remained open far longer than others.
Mining in the Winding Gulf coalfield of West Virginia began in the early 1900s, producing low-volatile smokeless coal, including metallurgical coal suitable for use in steel making. Mining was centered on the thick Beckley seam until it was economically exhausted by the 1950s, and the Pocahontas seam until the late 1980s.
But after the coal seams were exhausted, these coal camps were all but abandoned and today, only a few reminders of this booming era remain.
I was pretty excited to come across two notable churches in the Winding Gulf that are still extant.
Years ago, when I first started to explore the coalfields of Appalachia, I would venture down the Tolsia and King Coal highways toward Williamson, West Virginia. Atop College Hill was the old Williamson Memorial Hospital, a place that I had long wanted to venture inside of. On April 11, 2021, I finally had my chance.
The abandoned Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in southern West Virginia is probably home to more ghostly tales than any other place in the region—but they are just that, stories told as truths that have at times come at the expense of Native Americans.
The introduction of the railroad to West Virginia’s New River Gorge turned the area into a globally significant coal mining region.
It’s been a long ten years since we had a white Christmas down in northeast Kentucky. I took advantage of the serenity and beauty to stop at Limeville.