Coketon | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 39°08′24″N79°30′43″W / 39.14000°N 79.51194°W | |
Country | United States |
State | West Virginia |
County | Tucker |
Elevation | 2,900 ft (900 m) |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
GNIS feature ID | 1554170 [1] |
Coketon is an unincorporated community and coal town in Tucker County, West Virginia, United States. Coketon lies at the confluence of Snyder Run and the North Fork Blackwater River, south of the town of Thomas.
The town was formed by the Davis Coal & Coke Company, led by Henry G. Davis, in the 1880s after large coal reserves were discovered in the area. In the company's prime, the town housed around 1,500 people, most of whom were immigrants. During each year from 1915 to 1921, the 15 mines near Coketon shipped over 1 million tons of coal, making it the sixth most productive operation in West Virginia at the time. The Davis Coal & Coke Company pioneered the "beehive" ovens, which were large sealed ovens which heated the coal to burn off impurities to make coke. The Davis Coal & Coke Company experimented with two of these ovens in 1887, and by 1900, there were over 600 beehive ovens. However, in 1915, a change in mining technology revolutionized the steel-making process, thereby eliminating the need for coke ovens at the mine site. By 1919, there was no coke production whatsoever in Tucker County, leaving the long banks of obsolete coke ovens unused. [2]
Soon after, coal production in Coketon also began fading. From the 1920s to the 1940s, the underground coal supplies were gradually depleted. As the coal production slowed and the mines closed, the population slowly declined, and the facility slowly began to shut down. By 1950, only two mines were still working and tonnage had fallen to 100,000 by 1954. By 1956, underground mining had ceased altogether with a few surface mining operations producing coal through 1965.[ citation needed ]
The Coketon Colored School was the center of a Civil Rights case in 1892. When the all-white Tucker County Board of Education instructed the Coketon Colored School’s teacher Carrie Williams to shorten the school year and teach three months less than the county’s white schools, Williams continued teaching for the full eight-month schedule and demanded full pay. Her lawyer, J.R. Clifford, was a prominent civil rights activist and the first African American lawyer in West Virginia. The case started in the Tucker County Courthouse in Parsons, and eventually reached the West Virginia Supreme Court. Their eventual victory in court was the first civil rights case in the history of the United States to determine discrimination on the basis of color to be illegal. [3]
Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content. It is made by heating coal or oil in the absence of air. Coke is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting, but also as a fuel in stoves and forges.
Thomas is a city and former coal town in Tucker County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 623 at the 2020 census.
Henry Gassaway Davis was an American politician and businessman who served as a United States Senator from West Virginia from 1871 to 1883. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1904.
The Blackwater River is a 34.3-mile-long (55.2 km) river in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. Via the Black Fork, it is a principal tributary of the Cheat River. Via the Cheat, the Monongahela and the Ohio rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River and drains an area of 142 square miles (370 km2). It is a true blackwater stream, owing to spruce and hemlock trees in its watershed, the tannins of which impart a tea or amber color to its water.
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892. By 1903 it was mainly owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs. While it came to control many plants throughout the country, its main plant was a steel mill on the south side of Pueblo, Colorado, and was the city's main industry for most of its history. From 1901 to 1912, Colorado Fuel and Iron was one of the Dow Jones Industrials. The steel-market crash of 1982 led to the decline of the company. After going through several bankruptcies, the company was acquired by Oregon Steel Mills in 1993, and changed its name to Rocky Mountain Steel Mills. In January 2007, Rocky Mountain Steel Mills, along with the rest of Oregon Steel's holdings, were acquired by EVRAZ Group, a Russian steel corporation, for $2.3 billion.
A beehive oven is a type of oven in use since the Middle Ages in Europe. It gets its name from its domed shape, which resembles that of a skep, an old-fashioned type of beehive.
Pocahontas Coalfield, which is also known as the Flat Top-Pocahontas Coalfield, is located in Mercer County/McDowell County, West Virginia and Tazewell County, Virginia. The earliest mining of coal in the coalfield was in Pocahontas, Virginia in 1883 at Pocahontas Mine No. 1, now on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Elkins Coal and Coke Company Historic District is a historic industrial site near the crossroads village of Bretz in Preston County, West Virginia. It is the site of the last major coke manufacturing facility to use beehive ovens, and was a major industrial site in northern West Virginia in the first half of the 20th century. Surviving elements include a row of 140 beehive ovens. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1983.
Blackwater Canyon is a rugged, heavily wooded, eight-mile (13 km) long gorge carved by the Blackwater River in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. For many years, it has been the object of controversy as environmental activists have contended with industrial interests over its ultimate status.
Calumet is a census-designated place in Mount Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Although the United States Census Bureau included it as a census-designated place with the nearby community of Norvelt for the 2000 census, they are in reality two very different communities, each reflecting a different chapter in how the Great Depression affected rural Pennsylvanians. As of the 2010 census, Calumet-Norvelt was divided into two separate CDPs officially. Calumet was a typical "patch town," another name for a coal town, built by a single company to house coal miners as cheaply as possible. The closing of the Calumet mine during the Great Depression caused enormous hardship in an era when unemployment compensation and welfare payments were nonexistent. On the other hand, Norvelt was created during the depression by the US federal government as a model community, intended to increase the standard of living of laid-off coal miners.
Kay Moor, also known as Kaymoor, is the site of an abandoned coal mine, coal-processing plant, and coal town near Fayetteville, West Virginia. The town site is located in the New River Gorge at Kaymoor Bottom (38°03′00″N81°03′17″W). It is linked to the mine portal 560 feet (170 m) above on Sewell Bench (38°02′52″N81°03′58″W) in the wall of the Gorge by conveyors.
The Nuttallburg Coal Mining Complex and Town Historic District is located near Winona, West Virginia in New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. The townsite is almost directly across from the Kay Moor mine and townsite, now abandoned. Like Kay Moor, the town is built around the railroad line at the bottom of the gorge, with an array of coke ovens and mining structures, as well as a bridge across the New River to South Nuttall.
The Pittsburgh coal seam is the thickest and most extensive coal bed in the Appalachian Basin; hence, it is the most economically important coal bed in the eastern United States. The Upper Pennsylvanian Pittsburgh coal bed of the Monongahela Group is extensive and continuous, extending over 11,000 mi2 through 53 counties. It extends from Allegany County, Maryland to Belmont County, Ohio and from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania southwest to Putnam County, West Virginia.
The Dunlap coke ovens are the remnants of a coke production facility near Dunlap, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Built in the early 1900s, the facility consists of five batteries of 268 beehive ovens, which operated under various companies until the early 1920s. The ovens are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and are maintained by the Sequatchie Valley Historical Society as part of Dunlap Coke Ovens Park.
Helvetia, located in Brady Township in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, United States, was a company mining town that was purchased by the R&P in 1896. The Helvetia Mine quickly became one of the largest producers in the region, dominating the Reynoldsville coalfield for many years. The company town lasted from 1891 to 1947. Schools, churches and stores were built for the families of the miners, and to this day a small population still live in Helvetia. The town had three periods of ownership; Adrian Iselin built the town and started commercial operations at the mine circa 1890–1891; during the second period of ownership, from 1896 to 1947, management and operations at Helvetia were under the direct control of the R&P; in 1947, the R&P sold all of its company towns, including Helvetia, to the Kovalchick Salvage Company. The mine was permanently closed in 1954.
Richard is an unincorporated community in Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States.
Bradenville is a census-designated place and coal town in Derry Township in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The community is located within two miles of the city of Latrobe and is three miles from the borough of Derry.
Klondyke Coke Ovens are heritage-listed beehive ovens at Parker Lane, Brassall, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.It is also known as Klondyke Beehive Coke Ovens and Klondyke Coking Ovens. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 December 2007.
Caroline "Carrie" M. Williams was an African American educator in West Virginia in the United States. Williams fought and won a significant 1898 civil rights case, Williams v. Board of Education of Fairfax District, which upheld West Virginia's law requiring equal school terms, and established equal pay for teachers regardless of their race.
Kempton is a ghost town in Garrett County, Maryland. Kempton is also partially located in Tucker County, West Virginia.