Coalwood, WV.

     Coalwood, West Virginia is located in McDowell County and was a company owned town founded by George Lafayette Carter in 1905. It is mainly recognized by the home town of The Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam and the movie October Sky based on the book. The first inhabitants of the area, though, founded the community of Snakeroot at the junction of Wolfpen Branch and Clear Fork Branch, and the post office was established on September 20, 1869. The Coalwood post office was founded on March 12, 1903, the same year that Carter purchased 20,000 acres of land for the underground coal reserves. He then founded Carter Coal Company, which is the mining company that owned the coal town. In 1904, work began on constructing the West Virginia Southwestern Railway from its junction with the Norfolk & Western at Gordon along the Tug Fork west of Roderfield. The 9 mile branch was completed to Coalwood and opened on April 10, 1905, and was owned and operated by the Norfold & Western as their Clear Fork Branch. The first shaft mine opened at Coalwood in 1914. The companies of Carter Coal and Coke Co, operated the mines and town at Coalwood until Consolidation Coal Co. purchased the operation in 1922. This arrangement lasted until 1933, when Consolidation Coal Co., in dire financial straits form fighting the UMWA, let the properties go back to Carter. As of the 1990 Census, the population was 900. It is estimated around 300-400 people lived there of the time the coal camp was being taken place. The Carter Coal Company and built offices, houses, a schoolhouse, the Carter Coal Company Store, a church, and more. Carter hired a dentist and a doctor to provide service to his miners. They were not paid in regular currency, but script. Most coal companies used this as a way to "trap" the miners, because they indeed could NOT use that specially made script anywhere else. In 1936, Carter died and the company was taken over by his son James, who in 1947 sold it to a group of industrialists who changed the company name to Olga Coal Company. In 1956 the Coalwood mine was connected underground to the nearby Caretta mine, which was also owned by Olga, and in 1959, Olga ceased bringing coal to the surface via Coalwood. At the peak of this boom, population reached of over 2,000.

Olga Company Coal Script formerly
used in Coalwood. 

In 1980, the Olga Coal Company was bought by the LTV Corporation, which closed Coalwood's mine in 1986. People still live in Coalwood, but have to depend on other jobs to make ends meet. The Big Store in Coalwood was torn down on March 29, 2008, by the owners of the historic Coalwood properties, Alawest, The tipple has been dismantled and the site of the old abandoned mine is now fenced in with a car wash adjacent to it and a convenience store across the highway.

October Sky Festival.
Once a year, in October, Coalwood hosted an October Sky festival in honor of the accomplishments of the Rocket Boys. Unfortunately, the Cape Coalwood Restoration Association announced that the 13th October Sky festival, had been the last one. 

Coalwood is still inhabited by many people making honest livings and earnings, just not by the Coalwood mines. Mines were shut down and boarded up near the 1980's, as well as many other historical land mines in the town. It is mainly a tourist attraction now an days. The Homer Hickman house has also been preserved for touring. But the Coalwood legend and history will forever stay.