I’ve come to Nemacolin just in time for the festival at the fire hall and a chance to eat a pulled pork sandwich, fresh from the spit. Not too big this year because of COVID-19. Still, games to play and things to win are set up outside and kids and their parents are having fun as evening settles in. When Buckeye Mine was still open, the whole town turned out for a day of celebration with parades of fire trucks, bands and coal miners marching through town, down Pershing Boulevard, a.k.a Bosses Row, past the company store to the heart of town.
That empty but impressive old supply store building is still standing, just across the street from the Post Office in the downstairs of the UMWA 6290 District 2 building. When Buckeye Mine closed in 1986, Nemacolin slowly became a bedroom community for those who chose to stay and drive to work somewhere else. Homes were sold, some at tax sales, some stood empty, some became poorly maintained rental properties. The ensuing decades of neglect took its toll. But in recent years, with the economy changing direction amid a countywide housing shortage, working families eager to buy a home for a reasonable price are in luck. This old but well-built coal town with its sturdy infrastructure is ready to make their ownership dreams come true.
Fire department member Ed Helman takes a break from festival duty to show me some of the houses that the Redevelopment Authority of Greene County is in the process of renovating. RAGC purchased thirteen properties in June and plans to remove several blighted structures and rehabilitate the rest.
RAGC helps potential new homeowners who have had their finances vetted through Blueprints (formerly Community Action Southwest) to apply for a property. The first two years of mortgage payments are made to RAGC, then the program walks participants through the bank mortgage process. Ed tells me that he received a zero interest loan through the redevelopment authority to fix up his own house. The Nemacolin project has $100,000 earmarked for these loans.
We take a drive through narrow streets stretching up the slope above Pershing Boulevard to a bird’s eye view of the surrounding hills and the Monongahela River below. We stop to take a photo of the yellow brick house that is being readied for market. Whoever buys this home will be living in a town that feels almost European in its layout, brimming with possibility. And yes, the price is right.
Nemacolin was widely praised as a model coal town for its day, designed by engineers and built by Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company on 78 acres of pastureland above McCann’s Ferry. The vision was to build a cutting edge industrial town that satisfied every working family’s needs. Houses would have all the modern conveniences – indoor plumbing, running water, storm drains and electricity. The world was at war and steel was in high demand in 1917 when work began on the slope for Buckeye Mine. Materials were ferried over from Fayette County and the race was on to build a town for the hundreds of workers it would take to keep Buckeye Mine viable for the next 70 years.
“Coal was struck in the airshaft by Dravo Corporation” on February 2, 1918, Nemacolin native Robert A. Korcheck tells us in his book Nemacolin: the Mine – the Community. That year wells were drilled for fresh water, a sewage plant was built, electric poles were set, the company store opened and the 240-some workers living on site formed a baseball team. A hospital, built in a single day in March with steam heat – the first in the county and just in time for the Spanish Influenza pandemic that left five dead in Nemacolin that season. Streets were graded and lined with company houses, painted black with creosote and whitewash trim. Bosses Row got built, the post office opened and by fall 1919 the new elementary school took in its first students. The amusement building added in 1920 housed a theater, bowling alley, pool tables, barbershop, dance floor, beauty shop and a restaurant. It was a fine sight with its high arched facade over the front door, giving the heart of town a big city look. The road up the hill to Carmichaels was a muddy rutted slog most of the year but by 1921 townsfolk could walk down the brick surfaced slope and take Pennsylvania Railroad’s occasional passenger cars to Brownsville to shop. Buckeye Coal Company may have owned the land and all the buildings, but miners weren’t paid in script and at the top of the hill where company ownership ended, Charles and Harry Ruttenburg had a department store with competitively priced goods. Other stores and establishments that sprang up along the road included a hotel, gaming rooms and other things not generally tolerated in Nemacolin. The coal company landlord held the power of job loss and eviction for not following the rules – including unionizing – over miners and their families and kept a private police force to enforce them.
Korcheck’s sleuthing in the Waynesburg Republican reveals that on November 11, 1922, Harry Ruttenburg was arrested for “selling beer and having in his possession several cases.” Prohibition was on the prowl and this was the first case to make the papers.
That year a 1916 Buick automobile was converted into the town’s first fire truck, loaded with two 40-gallon acid-soda tanks, two hand held extinguishers., axes, hose spanners and a ladder. By 1925 there were 400 houses in Nemacolin and on December 8 the mine produced 5,222 tons of coal.
Nemacolin miners survived, thrived and made sure their kids spoke good English and got a good education. Mining families made it through wildcat strikes, the Great Depression and World War II into the age of long wall mining and the gradual depletion of coal reserves. Old timers were happy to stay put and cheer as their kids and grandkids fledged to better jobs and went on to live the American Dream. When the company began selling the houses in 1946 for $1000, families bought their homes and settled into a town they could now call their own.
When I call lifelong resident Toby Korcheck to let her know what a fun read her late husband’s book has been for this story, I get a living tour d’ force of the good old days growing up in the best coal town in America. “We had a roller rink and a pool. We had everything you could possibly want. I’ll never leave and I’m leaving my house to my son.” The pool that opened to great fanfare after the miners got their own UMWA charter was below the crest of the hill and people came from miles around to enjoy it.
But the slope still runs to the river and the abandoned rail line has already been converted to Greene River Trail as far as Crucible. Much of the old mine acreage is now wildlife habitat – the Nemacolin Boy Scouts planted 608,000 seedling trees between 1925 and 1937. And luckily, there is still a scout troop in the area and families in town with kids who want to play outside and enjoy what Greene County has to offer. Whatever happens next will depend on what this new generation of neighbors and friends decide they want to get together and do.