Bluefield,“The Little New York,” was one of the first cities in the world to have a noticable skyline.

After the discovery of the largest, richest coal deposit in the world, the city sprung up almost overnight. In a single year, rail traffic exploded from fewer than 500 passengers to more than 13,000. It was so prominent, it was on Adolf Hitler’s air strike list.

It’s easy to see why: coal was the main source of energy, and at the time, Bluefield was responsible for 40% of the North American coal supply.

As the most prominent stop along the C&O rail line, Thurmond was a bustling hub of culture and coal.

Nearly 100,000 people rolled into the station to visit each year, including the wealthy coal barons, who brought their glamorous living along with them. The banks became the richest in the state.

Thurmond saw more coal per year than Cincinnati, Ohio, and Richmond, Virginia combined.

Princeton was a major stop along the Virginian Railway, founded by one of the wealthiest men in the world. He invested $40 million in the “Richest Little Railroad in the World.”

The line took a different approach than it competitors: instead of linking major cities, they set a direct course from point A to B. That meant digging straight through mountains, and laying tracks through rural areas. Princeton happened to be a small town that prospered by being in its path.

It was one of America’s most innovative and prominent rail lines.

When the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine was in operation, it was called the Phillips-Sprague Mine.

It was a fairly small family-owned mines. These were sometimes called “punch mines,” because they were “punched right into the hillside.”

In the depths more than 1,500 feet below the surface, the mine was less than 34 inches tall. Miners crawled on their sides to dig out carts full of coal.

< This is another mine from the Southern WV area that looks like Beckley’s back in the day.

Hinton wasn’t directly involved in coal mining, but it’s a great example of the massive impact of the industry, because it wouldn’t exist without it.

Simply because of the massive amounts of coal being transported through the area, Hinton thrived as a stop along the rail lines to the New River Gorge coalfields. The line was prominent thanks to the work of famous locomotive magnate Collis P. Huntington, who wanted to extend the rail line coast to coast.

Instead of money, miners used to be paid in scrip, a company-specific currency that could only be spent one place: the company store.

The Whipple Company Store was the center of coal camp life by necessity. It was where you went to see the doctor, buy your grains and make a call.

Even in its early days, the multi-level octagonal architecture was unique and impressive, and made it easy to segment the shop for different goods and services.

The coalfields of McDowell County, through towns like Welch and Coalwood, were in “The heart of the nation’s coal bin.” For a while, it was the largest coal producer in the nation.

At its peak, this county had 100,000 people, many of whom were foreign laborers who came to work in the mines.

Coalwood was known across the country as a “model town” because it invested in its workforce, which built up the local community and boosted productivity.

It may seem like a typical small town now, but in its late 1800s heyday, Bramwell had more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the country.

The coal boom barons all settled right on the town’s main street, building a towering line of ornate mansions, with intricate details, ballrooms, wrap-around decks and more.

In the massive coalfields spreading 40 miles from town, more than 100,000 workers mined top-quality coal— so renowned, it was the preferred coal of Buckingham Palace and the US government.

Nuttallburg was the nation’s second mine to shop smokeless coal, which traveled up the mountain 1,385 feet on what was then the world’s longest conveyor belt to be processed and shipped. The powerful conveyor could handle 125 tons of coal in a single hour.

The famous motor mogul Henry Ford bought Nuttalburg, in an effort to control every aspect of his auto empire. His “vertical integration” experiment failed, though, because he couldn’t control the rail lines that transported the coal.