Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-10-05
xncb ~ oct ON a dark :,

Lynch, KY, Oct. Z.-On a dark
night as the train swept along the
West Virginia shore of Tug River, the
water boundary between the coal
Kentucky, and the scene of the ia
nous Hatfield Mccoy feud of other
days, a patriarchal mountaineer stood
in the bow of a rude john boat with a
spear poised to strike. Over the
boats bow was suspended an iron fire
basket and the bright flame from
burning pine knots flared over the
clear shallow water OF. the river re-
vealing the fish to the man with the
"fizgig."
The train roared into the darkness
of the narrow valley before the spear
man struck. The patriarch with the
poised gig remained a. mental picture
of the survival of he old life Of the
wilderness in a period In which mine
bosses In khaki. concrete coal tipples,
electric lights in mountain shacks,
gasoline filling stations and public
garages in villages struggling on
mountainsides silk stockings and
f~ashionably cut skirts worn by wives
and daughters OF Italians, Croats,
S%lovenes,, and Serbians, working in
Kentucky mines, mark the transition
of this region from its former primi-
tive 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 progress
sive American cities. Within a few
miles of these trig little cities made by
powerful corporations to house their
armies of foreign and native coal dig
gers. whose language is polyglot and
whose American slang is as up-to-date
as the gowns. and hats worn by their
.womenfolk, one alights-"Iights' .is
the local term-from a mule before
q log cabin. He hears Elizabethan
English. d~eteriorated from long use
where schools are few and poor,
spoken by men and women of the pur-
est Anglo-Saxon blood, although this
blood has suffered deterioration by
reason of complete isolation of clans
since the mountains were settled by
pioneers from Virginia. whose wagons
broke down in the mountains" Luck
Ter travellers reached the Bluegrass
with the result that their descendants
inherited the land and the fairness
thereof. j,
At Lynch, where the ground floor
of tr/~ company hotel is 1900 feet
above sea level, and the crest of the
mountains within sight Of the hotel
veranda is 1000 feet, a single coal
tipple, said to be the largest in the
world, hal a capacity of $4,000 tons
a day.
Here until a few years ago was
wilderness and silence. Nowadays
there is a small city boasting 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 q, hotel as we'll equipped as
a smart summer resort in the North
Carolina mountains.
The company department store
compares we'll with the best estab-
lishment in any American city of .200,-
900 in appearance, fixtures and stock.
market and cold storage plant in
which miners wives do their table
shopping.
City Merchandising Advantages:
In this mercantile establishment: a
young miner may sit at a table in the
mezannine floor OF the drugstore as
smart az any on +. street in Washing
ton eating ices and cakes with his
best girl" or 60 into the clothing
department and fit himself out DIS well
az he could in Louisville or Cincin-
natl. II The lie q spender. as miners
often are, he can buy cigars up to 81
each, and at that price they are
sometimes sold. The miner'e wife or
daughter canS3pay, az much Nor her
silk stockings In Lynch a. she could
In New York. The president OF
great Incorporation who was n among
several magnates who visited LyIfch
look over q late example Of model
camp arrangement Jokingly satd
he would take his Wife, In New Fork,
the best pair OF silk stockings In the
store; When he paid the saleswom-
an he said ne had set his wife bad
example IN the purchase Of expensive
women,s furnithings. s
The chubby atmosphere of4the com
pany hotel upon#whose broad porch
easy chairs command Wow Of . sky
line high upon Black Mountain, the
click Of billiard balls heard through
the open basen,enta windows. the
smart cottssss n Witch miners. Wives
luss elsetsae ircnss and tpastsrs. ana