Pocahontas Coalfield

[3] This operation, replete with beehive coke ovens, eventually spawned the Pocahontas Fuel Company, which operated mines in Virginia at Boissevain and Amonate, and in West Virginia at Jenkinjones, Bishop, and Itmann.

The mines at Pocahontas were able to ship coal when the Norfolk & Western Railway[5] bought the New River Railroad and extended a branch line there.

As this railroad was extended westward through Mercer and McDowell Counties the coalfield expanded with it.

Coal mines continued to open through the 1890s as the Norfolk & Western Railroad laid track along Elkhorn Creek and eventually reached Welch.

After 1918 the coal was shipped by rail to the massive Coke Works in Clairton.

Immigrants from Poland, Hungary, Italy, and Greece settled in the coal camps and contributed to the remarkable ethnic diversity of the area.

Extraction of the low-volatile coal continued unabated through the energy boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s.