Coalwood is an unincorporated community coal town in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. The coal mine in Coalwood reached its peak in the 1950s and finally shut down production on October 1, 1986. As of the 1990 census—the last time the town was counted separately—the population was 900. The town is the setting of the best-selling memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam and the October Sky movie that is based on the book.
Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. is an American author, Vietnam War veteran, and a former NASA engineer who trained the first Japanese astronauts. His 1998 memoir Rocket Boys was a New York Times Best Seller and was the basis for the 1999 film October Sky. Hickam's body of written work also includes several additional best-selling memoirs and novels, including the "Josh Thurlow" historical fiction novels, his 2015 best-selling Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, his Wife, and her Alligator and in 2021 the sequel to Rocket Boys titled Don't Blow Yourself Up: The Further Adventures and Travails of the Rocket Boy of October Sky. His books have been translated into many languages.
Henry Gassaway Davis was a millionaire and Senator from West Virginia. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1904.
October Sky is a 1999 American biographical drama film directed by Joe Johnston and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Chris Owen, and Laura Dern. The screenplay by Lewis Colick, based on the memoir of the same name, tells the true story of Homer H. Hickam Jr., a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes and eventually became a NASA engineer.
October Sky is the first memoir in a series of four, by American engineer Homer Hickam Jr. originally published in 1998 as Rocket Boys. Later editions were published under the title October Sky as a tie-in to the 1999 film adaptation.
Donald Leon Blankenship is an American business executive and political candidate. He was chairman and CEO of the Massey Energy Company—the sixth-largest coal company in the United States—from 2000 until an explosion at one of his coal mines in 2010, costing him his position.
Caretta is an unincorporated community located in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. Caretta was named for the transposed syllables in the name of Mrs. Etta Carter, the wife of George Lafayette Carter. It is the only place in the United States with this name.
The Proud Valley is a 1940 Ealing Studios film starring Paul Robeson. Filmed in the South Wales coalfield, the principal Welsh coal mining area, the film is about a seaman who joins a mining community. It includes their passion for singing as well as the dangers and precariousness of working in a mine.
The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, at the Sago Mine in Sago, West Virginia, United States, near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days; only one survived. It was the worst mining disaster in the United States since the Jim Walter Resources Mine disaster in Alabama on September 23, 2001, and the worst disaster in West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster. It was exceeded four years later by the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, also a coal mine explosion in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners in April 2010.
Denise Giardina is an American novelist. Her book Storming Heaven was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. The Unquiet Earth received an American Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award for fiction. Her 1998 novel Saints and Villains was awarded the Boston Book Review fiction prize and was semifinalist for the International Dublin Literary Award. Giardina is an ordained Episcopal Church deacon, a community activist, and a former candidate for governor of West Virginia.
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 Unquiet Earth is Denise Giardina's third novel. It was published in 1992 and won the W.D. Weatherford Award that year.
Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238 (1936), is a United States Supreme Court decision interpreting the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which permits the United States Congress to "regulate Commerce... among the several States." Specifically, it analyzes the extent of Congress’ power, according to the Commerce Clause, looking at whether or not they have the right to regulate manufacturing.
Sir Richard Augustine Studdert Redmayne was a British civil and mining engineer. Redmayne worked as manager of several mines in Britain and South Africa before becoming a professor at the University of Birmingham. He was a leading figure in improving mine safety in the early twentieth century and would become the first Chief Inspector of Mines, leading investigations into many of the mine disasters of his time. He became the president of three professional associations, namely the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, the Institution of Professional Civil Servants and the Institution of Civil Engineers.
George Lafayette Carter (1857-1936) was an American entrepreneur and known as "the empire builder of southwest Virginia." His ventures led to the development and modernization of many parts of the southern Appalachian region during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Warren Stanford Stone was a railway worker who rose to head the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in the United States from 1903 to 1925. He was unusual as a labor leader in that he did not believe in compulsory union membership and was comfortable with "labor capitalism". He supported a radical plan in which workers in an industry would take one-third of the profits, the other thirds going to capital and the public. By the end of his tenure the Brotherhood controlled investments worth over $100 million.
Big Stone Gap is a 2014 American drama romantic comedy film written and directed by Adriana Trigiani and produced by Donna Gigliotti for Altar Identity Studios, a subsidiary of Media Society. Based on Trigiani's 2000 best-selling novel of the same name, the story is set in the actual Virginia town of Big Stone Gap circa 1970s. The film had its world premiere at the Virginia Film Festival on November 6, 2014. The film was released on October 9, 2015, by Picturehouse. The film was released in Blu-Ray by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on February 2, 2016.
The Coalwood Way (2000) is the second memoir in a series of three, by Homer Hickam, Jr. The Coalwood Way is a story of the Rocket Boys and Coalwood. Homer calls it an "equal," rather than a sequel because the story happens during the same timeframe as the first book. Today, it is one of the most often picked community/library reads in the United States. It is also studied in many school systems around the world. The Coalwood Way (2000) is followed by Sky of Stone (2002), and preceded by October Sky (1998).
Jack Spadaro is an American mining engineer. He is from West Virginia and is known for bringing attention to oversights of the government in relation to the Martin County coal slurry spill and whistleblowing on the subsequent downplaying of the role of the government and Massey Energy in the disaster.
Sarah Rebecca Blizzard was an American labor activist involved with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). She was the mother of UMWA officer Bill Blizzard, and was known to the coal miners as "Mother" or "Ma" Blizzard. UMWA President Cecil Roberts is her great-grandson.
