Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-10-05
A MODEL MINING TOWN
IN WEST VIRGINIA
Daily Letter by Frederic J. Haskin

LYNCH, KY, Oct. 2.-on a d2rk
night, as the train swept along the
West Virginia shore of Tug Itiver,
the water boundary between the
coal fields of West Virginia and
eastern Kentucky, and the scene of
the famous Hatfieid-McCoy feud
OF other days, a ~patrlarchal noun
taineer stood in the bow of a rude
John boat with a spear poised to
strike. over the boats how WAS
suspended an ron lire basket and
the bright flame from burning pine
knots fiared over the clear shallow
water of the river revealing the hsh
to the man with ''tizgig."
The train roared into the dark
Eess of the narrow valley before the
Spcarman struck. The patriarch
with the poised gig remained a
mental picture of the survival of
the old life of the wilderness i'll a
period in which mine bosses in
khaki, concrete coal tipples. cleo
tric lights in mountain shacks, gaso-
lire filling stations and public gar
ages in villages struggling on noun
tainsIdes, silk stocking and fashion
ably cut skirts worn by wives and
daughters of Italians, Croats, Sc
ycnes, and Serbians, working in
Kentucky mines, mark the transit
ton of this region from its former
primitive state.
Throughout the coal and oil fields
OF Kentucky there are everywhere
striking evidences of change. In the
great coal camps model homes for
miners compare favorably with the
latest modern tenements in pro-
gressive American cities. Within a
few miles of these trlg little cities
made by powerful corporations to
house their armies of foreign and
native coal diggers, whose language
is polyglot and whose American
slang is as up-to-date as the gowns
and hats worn by their womenfoik,
one alights-'lights' is the local
term-from a mule before a log
cabin. He hears EliZabethan Eng
Iish, deteriorated from long use
| where schools are few and poor.
spoken by men and m of the
puress Anglo-Saxon blood, al
though this blood has suffered de-
terloration by reason of compls;e
Isolation of clans since the noun
tains were settled by pioneers frcm
| Virginia whose wagons broke down
in the mountains" Luckier trav-
elers reached the Bluegrass with
the result that their descendants
inherited the land and the fatness
thereof.
At Lynch where the ground
floor OF the company hotel is 1,80o
feet above sea level. and the crest
CT the mountains within sight of
the hotel veranda is 1000 feet, a
single coal tipple, said to be the
largest in the world, has q capacity
OF 12,000 ions a day.
Here until a few years ago was
wilderness and silence. Nowadays
there is a small city Boosting itself
a model of sanitary arrangement
The United States Coal and Coke
Company, a branch OF the United
States Steel Corporation, lodges
miners. and as a courtesy transients
not engaged in mining, in a hotel
as well equipped as a smart summer
resort in the North Carolina noun
tains.
The company department. store
compares we'll with the best estab'
lishment in any American city o
5000 in appearances, fixtures anC
stock. It's basement includes q
model meat market and cold stor'
age plant in which miners wive:
do their table shopping.
City Merchandising Advantages
In this mercantile establishment
a young miner may sit at a table il
the mezannine floor of the drug
store as smart as any IN h street il
Washington eating ices and cake
with his "best girl or go into tin
clothing department and fit himsel
out as well as he could in LouisvA''
or Cincinnati. If he is a spender
as miners often are, he can bu!
cigars up to 81 each, and at tina
price they are sometimes sold. tn
miners wife or daughter "a pay e
much for her silk stockings il
Lynch as she could IN New York
The president of a great CORPORA
tor who was among several mag
mates who visited Lynch to loci
ever a late example of mode min
camp arrangement jokingly said +
would take his wife, in New Yorl
The best pair of silk stockings !
tho store. When he paid the sales
woman said he had set his VIE
bad example in the purchase Of ez
pensixe women's furnishings.
The chubby atmosphere of tn
: ccmpany hotel upon whose bros
porch easy chairs command a Vie
? OF a skyline high upon Black Noun
tain the click of billiard balls hear
: through The epsn Basement VIA