Crab Orchard Museum Gallery

The museum gallery tour is self-guiding and begins with an interpretive display of Native American artifacts. Most of what is known about this period comes from archaeological sources, although the Spanish explorer de Soto encountered the Chisca tribe in 1542. The Chisca, who later were absorbed by the Shawnee, lived in present day east Tennessee and southwest Virginia.

Other than the Spanish explorers, the longhunters were probably the first Europeans to visit southwest Virginia. Dr. Thomas Walker passed through the region around 1750 during his explorations that took him to east Tennessee and Kentucky. As southwest Virginia was settled, the area became home to longhunters who farmed during the growing season and hunted from October until late March or early April. Long hunting was a dangerous trade, for the hunters spent months deep in Indian territory, far from any other Europeans. Here is a closer view of some of the tools of their trade.

There is a display of Revolutionary War artifacts, along with the following information:

The Birth of a County display documents settlement in the area, the end of conflict with the Indians, and the development of institutions both social and political. Note the device for preparing flax on the right and the school desk immediately behind it. The fine table on the left denotes a transition from a rough frontier existence, as well.

More tools of pioneer homesteads.

The U.S. Civil War began in 1861. The State of Virginia was one of eleven states to form the Confederate States of America, but the far western counties seceded from the Confederacy to form the State of West Virginia, which was admitted to the Union in 1863. Tazwell County, which remained in Virginia, became a border with the Union and McDowell County, West Virginia.

Following the Civil War there was rapid industrialization in the U.S. and that industrialization was fueled by coal.

Above are some of the tools of coal mining when it was done largely by hand labor. The chest augers to drill holes for blasting are now museum pieces, as are the carbide lamps to light a miner's way.

Coal remains an important industry in southwest Virginia and in West Virginia. But it faces increasing controversy. Modern surface mining technologies allow for the extraction of coal from beds previously thought out of reach, but also produce environmental impacts on an unprecedented scale. Among the most damaging is what is called mountain-top removal, where large amounts of overburden are removed and dumped into valley heads in what is called head-of-hollow fills. These practices are receiving fierce opposition, as well as a battle of bumper stickers throughout the region.

Tomorrow we will continue the tour outside.

Big South Fork Scenic Railroad

Last week we took a ride on the Big South Fork Scenic Railroad, which leaves from nearby Stearns, KY. This is a fairly long ride, so get comfortable and enjoy the trip. The trains are privately owned, but operate in cooperation with the National Park Service. The tracks were originally built by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company to haul coal and timber from their operations, and to provide passenger service to the company-owned camps.

There is entertainment while people gather for the train ride. The guitar player turned out to be the engineer, as well.

But we had brought our own engineer. (Her great uncle is an engineer for Norfolk Southern and had given her the child-sized engineer's cap.)

Maybe riding with her Granny would be more fun than driving the train.

The train ride goes from the top of the Cumberland Plateau into the valley of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, passing through cuts and a tunnel that are barely wide enough to let the train pass.

Much of the trip follows Paunch Creek as it flows down to the Big South Fork.

It passes through the recreated mining camp of Barthell, where overnight lodging is available in reconstructed miners' cabins.

At one point Paunch Creek runs rust red from acid mine drainage, the result of improper mine closure. The mining company has been in litigation over its closures and just recently forfeited its mineral rights ownership in settlement of the case.

At the bottom of the hill the track curves to follow the Big South Fork downstream. A switch is thrown and the train moves in reverse ...

crossing Paunch Creek on its approach to the Blue Heron mining camp. The railroad bridge over Paunch Creek was bought used by the mining company, and curved in the wrong direction. That was remedied by simply installing the bridge upside down and laying the track on the bottom of the bridge, which of course was now facing up.

The track runs beside the mine road on its way into Blue Heron, and both parallel the river in a strip barely wide enough to contain them. Throughout much of Appalachia there isn't room for a road and tracks on the same side and they will occupy opposite sides of the creeks or rivers.

The National Park Service has recreated the Blue Heron mining camp. Significant structures, such as miners' cabins, the church, and school, are represented as "ghost structures," skeletal buildings of the correct dimensions located in their original places. Inside these structures are life-size cutouts of the people who lived, worshiped, or learned in them. A push of a button plays a recording made by these same people describing their life in Blue Heron.

The track ends at a station/museum/ gift shop in the middle of the coal camp. Riders have an hour and a half before the train leaves for the return trip.

Inside the museum is an H.O. scale model of Blue Heron as it looked during coal production.

Then it's off to find some lunch.

Ahh! Mountain soul food, pinto beans and cornbread. Does anyone have some chopped onions?

The excursion train consists of passenger cars built on old flat cars. It's currently pulled by a diesel switch engine. By this time next year they expect to have their 0-6-0 steam locomotive restored and in operation. I'm looking forward to that, especially since that very engine once ran on the Morehead & North Fork Railroad that was part of my childhood.

There was more entertainment as people gathered for the return trip.

Along with much anticipation.

The whistle means it's time to go!

The return trip led past a rock house occupied by the wee folk, one of whom sat and watched the train go by.

We again passed through Barthell, passing the miners' cabins perched on the hillside above the tracks.

It also passed a former passenger platform, a remnant of the days when this line was the only means of reaching coal camps such as Barthell, Blue Heron, Zenith, and Yamacraw.

The trips ends back in the town of Stearns. The large building just barely seen at the far right in the photograph is the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company headquarters building. We rode the train on Friday; on Saturday night the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company building was destroyed by fire. Arson is suspected.

The Fraterville Mine Disaster

Tomorrow marks the 110th anniversary of the worst mine disaster in Tennessee history. At about 7:30 am on May 19, 1902, an explosion ripped through the Fraterville Mine of the Coal Creek Mining Company. Apparently fueled by methane gas that had seeped into the mine from an adjacent unventilated shaft,  the blast and its aftermath took the lives of 216 miners, some of them children. Among the youngest was 12-year-old Henry Whitton.

Whitton and many of the dead were buried in the Leach Cemetery, just south of present-day Lake City, Tennesse. Eighty-nine graves form concentric rings around a central obelisk erected as a memorial to all of the miners killed. (The extreme lean of gravestones near the margins of the photograph is due to distortion by the wide-angle lens used for the shot. Not all stones remain plumb, by any means, but none is as extreme as the photo suggests.)

The monument counts 184 miners killed. The others include miners whose names were unknown, itinerants who had no family in the area.

Names of the 184 men and boys are engraved on the base of the obelisk. One striking aspect of the names is the number of members of a single family killed. Four, five, and six identical surnames are common as one walks around the monument. One family supposedly lost eight members. It is said that only three adult male residents remained in Fraterville after the explosion, amongst a population of widows and orphans.

Indicative of the times, the names of African-American miners were listed separately on the monument. I did not verify, but I suspect that none is buried at this site, certainly not within the rings around the monument.

This seventeen-year-old was just one of many young adults killed. Next to his grave are the graves of 21 and 22-year-olds. By this age, they most likely were experienced, seasoned miners, having joined their fathers in the mines young to help support a large family. The Coal Creek Mining Company was recognized as a good employer in the area. They paid in cash, instead of script, and they never used convicts. The Fraterville Mine was considered to be one of the safest.

Not all who died were killed, or even injured, by the initial explosion. Those deeper in the mine survived, possibly up to seven hours or more before succumbing to lack of oxygen or toxic gases. Many wrote letters to loved ones seeking to comfort them in their Christian faith. J. L. Powell wrote to his wife, Ellen, on behalf of himself and the small son who was in the mine with him. He implored her to "put your trust in the Lord to help you raise my little children." On behalf of "Little Elbert" who sat beside him he added a request "for you all to meet us in heaven, all the children meet us both in heaven."

Rescue efforts were quickly organized, but in those days before modern mine-rescue technology, the rescuers were driven back by toxic fumes. The operator of the mine ventilation system and the mine superintendent were both charged with negligence and then acquitted following hearings.

At the base of the central monument is this small, ceramic Santa holding two children. Who left it? Perhaps a child remembering the children buried there generations ago, who had missed out on the joys of childhood Christmases?