John C.C. Mayo, King Coal
Channel: Kentucky Tennessee Living©
Date: 2014-10-05

This video will be updated with new information that we have discovered about the deal that was brokered between John C. C. Mayo and the Consolidation Coal Company.

John C. C. Mayo had a dream of bringing economic development and pleasures of the twentieth century to the mountains. For thirty years he and other local individuals endeavored to make this dream come true. In 1911 he made a deal like no other with the Consolidation Coal Company also known as Consol, that would make his dream a reality. Under the deal Consol would build 8 towns in Letcher County Kentucky starting with Jenkins and McRoberts. As part of the deal made with Mayo, Consol would spend $40 million dollars on the miners living conditions and amenities before shipping the first block of coal. These 8 cities would be the envy of the nation. They would have recreation centers, company stores, meat markets, hotels, bakeries, dairy and poultry farms, movie theaters, minor league baseball teams, golf courses, swimming pools, newly designed housing that would eventually become the industry standard of today and would have electricity and running water long before some of the major cities of today. The construction of these cities would take ten years and would be the single largest construction effort in the history of Kentucky.