But there is and was coal. Shop owners and builders followed. Coal miners and workers poured in from all around America and many foreign countries like Hungary, Poland, Russia and Italy. Houses, churches, cemeteries, stone fences, and bridge abutments bear their cultural stamp. Towns named Maybeury, Elkhorn, Kimball, Keystone and Landgraf follow quickly on one another.
Houses huddle together.
But through it all, you can imagine the bustling, energetic atmosphere that existed here up until a few years ago, up until Eastern coal fell out of favor with the industrial world. In Langraf, an impressive coal office building turned into a bed and breakfast stands within an arm's length of car windows and invites passersby onto its wide verandah and into its homey and quaint interior. Then we enter Northfork. Here the valley widens, making room for more that one street. Once a booming coal town, now it is quiet, but charming.