The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-10-05
Nv FREDERICK y HAsKIN

By FREDERICK j. HASk1N
LYNCH, KY, Oct. 5.-On a dark
night, as the train swept along the
West Virginia shore of Tug River,
the water boundary between the coal
fields of West Virginia and eastern
Kentucky, and the scene of the fam;
Gus Hatfield Mccoy feud of other days,
a patriarchial mountaineer stood in
the bow of rude john boat with a
spear poised to strike. Over the boats
bow was suspended an iron fire bas-
ket and the bright flame from burn
ing knots flared over the clear shallow
water of the river revealing 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 the 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 noun
tainsides, silk stockings and fashion
ably cut skirts worn my wives and
daughters of Italians, Greats, Slovenes,
and Serbians, working in Kentucky
mines, mark the transition of this re.
gion 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 Ia
test modern tenements in progressive
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-"hghts" is
the local term-from a mule before a
log cabin. He hears Elizabethan Eng.
lish, deteriorated from long use where
schools are few and poor, spoken by
men and women of the purest 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" Luckier ira
velers reached the Bluegrass with the
result that their descendants inherited
the land and the fairness thereof.
At Lynch, where the ground floor
of the company hotel is $500 feet
above sea level, and the crest of tbs
mountains within sight of the hotel
yeranda is 1000 feet, a single coal tiI
pie, said to be the largest in the world
has capacity of 10000 tons a day.
Here until few years ago was wild
erness and silence. Nowadays thert
is a small city boasting itself a mode
of sanitary arrangement. The United
States Coal and Coke company, (;
branch of the United States Steel Cor
poration, lodges miners, and as a court
esy transients not engaged in mining
in a hotel as well equipped as smar
sumner resort in the North Carolin;
mountains.
The company department store com
pares well with the best establishment
IN any American city of 100000 il
appearance, fixtures and stock. 1t
basement includes model meat mai
ket and cold storage plant in whic
miners wives do their table shopping
City Merchandising
Advantages Shown.
In this mercantile establishment
a young miner may sit at table i
the mezannine floor of the drugstor
as smart as any on F Street in VAST
ington eating ices and cakes with hi
best girl" or go into the clothing de
partment and fit himself out as we
as he could in Louisville or Cincinnati
If he is a spender, as miners often are
he can buy cigars up to 81 each, an
at that price they are sometimes sole