This video shows the remains of the Nuttallburg company store and the beehive coke ovens. Why were the ovens next-door to the store?
The Nuttallburg mine and town were established by John Nuttall, who had learned of the plans of the Chesapeake and…
This video shows the remains of the Nuttallburg company store and the beehive coke ovens. Why were the ovens next-door to the store?
The Nuttallburg mine and town were established by John Nuttall, who had learned of the plans of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad to build a northside line through the New River Gorge by reading newspaper reports. By the time the railroad arrived in 1873, Nuttall had built almost 100 houses, 80 coke ovens, a company store, a variety of mine structures, and a coal tipple on a railroad siding.
Flat land by the river was dedicated to railroad and industrial use, leaving houses to seek perches on the hillsides. The town was racially segregated with white workers on the west side of Short Creek and black workers on the east side and between the railroad and the river. Segregated neighborhoods were unfortunately the common condition of coal mining communities.
John Nuttall became the second coal operator to ship New River "smokeless" coal in 1875 after Joseph Lawton Beury had made the first shipment at Quinnimont in 1873. John Nuttall passed away in 1897, and his coal lands were inherited by his sons.
The Nuttallburg mine was acquired (or leased?) by Henry Ford's Fordson Coal Company in 1920 as a "captive mine" to supply coal to the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford updated many of the mine facilities, including a new tipple, a rope-and-button conveyor, and a headhouse, all of which still stand after extensive restoration by the National Park Service. Fordson sold the mine to the New River Coal Corporation in 1928, in part because of Ford's failure to negotiate more favorable freight rates on the C&O.
An excellent account of John Nuttall and his town is "Trees Above with Coal Below" by John Nuttall III.
