Jon Chase

COAL COUNTRY

  • Coal miners on graveyard shift, Twilight, W.VA. Jon Chase photo
  • Don and Doug Shelton, two brothers, two sides: one union, the other, non-union, standing but not working during a lengthy coal strike in Norton, Virginia, 1978. Jon Chase photo
  • This marquee for a drive-in movie with a parked coal train on the right marks a desolate landscape after the theater closed and was demolished. Harlan has come to symbolize the hard-scrabble history of coal mining in Appalachia. Mining was dangerous work, with men occasionally trapped in collapsed mines resulting in multiple deaths. The Harlan Coal Wars lasted from 1931 to 1939, with numerous miners, deputies, and bosses killed. Strikes marked by violence continued for decades afterward. Underground mines began closing in the late 1970's, replaced by mountain-top removal and large-scale surface strip mining that scarred the landscape and polluted water sources. Jon Chase photo.
  • Tarncy Mullins stands by his truck deep in the heart of coal country near the WV and KY borders in Wise County, VA, 1979. I recently was able to track Tarncy down through a funeral notice for his older brother, who died Jan. 6, the same day rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. I spoke with him on the phone; he is now 76 and lives with his wife of 55 years in nearby Clintwood, VA. He actually remembered our short roadside meeting some 42 years ago, and still has the photo I sent him way back then. Tarncy worked at Elkin #6 mine in Norton with two brothers whose photo I also took, Don and Doug Shelton. He gave up mining for the ministry, and officiated at the recent service for his brother. He lost another brother in a fatal mine accident decades ago. Mine accidents and black lung disease are both occupational hazards for coal miners. The disability rate in Wise County for the working population aged 15-64 is over 20%, meaning 1 in 5 workers have some sort of permanent disability.
  • Mother and daughter, Rowe Restaurant, Algoma, West Virginia, 1978. This combination restaurant/bar was like many in coal country, open early and late to serve miners working round-the-clock shifts. Men came in for beers after the graveyard shift ended, while others ate breakfast before starting work. The day I came by a fist fight broke out between two burly brothers in their late teens. A few punches were thrown, but it was quickly broken up. I was sitting with the woman pictured, whose husband was the owner. She got very teary and upset, despite no one getting hurt. When I asked why, she explained she hated to see brothers fight. She went on to relate how years earlier two brothers began fighting, and the place was getting torn up. Her husband told the brothers to stop, to no avail. He raised his shotgun from behind the bar and repeated his demand. The two charged him, and he fired his gun. Seconds later, two brothers lay dead on the barroom floor. No charges were ever brought. That was justice in the back hills of West Virginia. Jon Chase photo
  • Rattlesnake service, Micco, West Virginia. This form of snake handling sprang up in the early 20th century, based on a set of Bible verses that say the faithful will be able to handle serpents and drink poison, yet remain unharmed. Practitioners believe they must only pick up a snake when commanded by God, and if they get bitten, it is because their faith was not sufficiently strong. Once bitten, a victim does not seek medical attention. One month before I took this photo, the 15-year-old son of the minister pictured at far left was bitten and died..Jon Chase photo
  • Portrait of coal miner Phelan Napier and his wife in their one-room cabin on the outskirts of Harlan, a hard-core coal town in Kentucky. {quote}Bloody Harlan{quote} has a history of violence around coal and saw a pitched battle between federal agents and striking coal miners in 1931 that left many killed on both sides. With jobs in the coal industry declining due to automation, young people are moving away. A college degree is not helpful, since there are no job opportunities to make use of it. The population in Harlan county declined from over 40,000 in 1980 to about 26,000 in 2019. Jon Chase photo
  • Doug Shelton, a non-union supervisor drives to check on the condition of a mine during the national bituminous coal strike of 1978 near Norton, VA. He has a pistol on the seat and a rifle below it, while he keeps a close watch on the surrounding steep hillsides for anyone who might shoot at his truck thinking he is intending to work during the strike. He also explained that long-standing personal feuds are often played out and settled under the guise of union-coal company violence. Jon Chase photo
  • Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. Jackson is nestled in the heart of the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains. Kentucky produces more tobacco than any other state except North Carolina. For centuries, tobacco barns dotted the central Kentucky landscape, but as health risks from smoking became clear, sales of the state’s longtime top crop plummeted. Now farmers are turning to hemp as a less labor-intensive, more profitable alternative with a growing market for the extracted CBD oil. Jon Chase photo
  • Striking coal miner passing time at the public square in Harlan, Kentucky, on the hundredth day of a coal strike, 1978. Harlan has a long and storied history of coal strikes and violence dating back to the 1930's, when the song “Which Side Are You On?” became the anthem of a reborn United Mine Workers (UMWA) union. As recently as 2019 miners in Harlan County occupied a railroad track to halt a coal train until they got paid the back wages they were owed for loading that train. There is no longer a miner's union in Kentucky. Jon Chase photo
  • A father comforts his young daughter on his front porch, somewhere in Coal Country, Kentucky. Jon Chase photo
  • Woman with a Cadillac hat stands in her backyard, with a freight train parked on tracks behind. She lived in an all-Black hollow in the back hills of West Virginia. She posed willingly for me, but after few minutes her husband called her back into the house. She quickly told me, {quote}You'd better get moving. My husband says he's getting his gun right now.{quote} People don't are kindly to strangers, and no stranger had any reason to visit this small, isolated settlement. Jon Chase photo
  • State police patrol the Osborne Coal Yard near Pennington Gap, VA during the 1978 national bituminous coal strike led by the United Mine Workers of America. The strike lasted 110 days. When it was settled, coal miners were forced to pay for part of their health care for the first time in 30 years, they lost their pension benefits, and they lost the right to strike over local issues. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming. The once 200,000-strong UMW was reduced to just 20,000 miners, mostly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. Jon Chase photo
  • Woman barkeeper thinking of other places, West Virginia, 1978. At one point, more than 100,000 West Virginians worked in the mines that produced well-paying jobs. Now there are fewer than 20,000, and the jobs that do exist pay far less than they used to, thanks to successful anti-union actions by coal companies. Coal counties in Appalachia suffer high rates of heart disease, obesity, smoking, diabetes, and opioid abuse, leading them to have some of the lowest life expectancies in the country. Jon Chase photo
  • Coal miner at Elkin Mine #6, Norton, VA, 1979. Jon Chase photo
  • Faith healing at a church service in Micco, West Virginia in 1979. The young boy appears to have a drooped arm. Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, Micco is an unincorporated village named for the Main Island Creek Coal Company. Micco is part of surrounding Switzer, a census-designated place, with a 2021 population of 600 and an average per capita income of $18,000. Jon Chase photo.
  • Tent revival, Briarbranch, Kentucky. Life is hard in Coal Country, and many people turn to fundamentalist religion for their salvation. Jon Chase photo
  • Willy Turner with banjo, Briarbranch, KY, 1978. I picked him up hitchhiking on a back country road, and was a bit surprised to see a man his age asking for a ride. In the course of our conversation I asked if he lived alone. He answered, {quote}No, I don't live alone. I live with Jesus.{quote} Jon Chase photo
  • Railroad worker, WV. When West Virginia became a state in 1863, 90 percent of its population lived on farms. In 1873, the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) railroad finally connected southern West Virginia with the East Coast. By the early 20th century, branches of the C&O, Norfolk & Western, and the Virginian railroads extended into every coal-producing hollow in southern West Virginia,: importing miners and exporting coal. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia’s population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Jon Chase photo
  • Coalminer Columbus, Twilight, W.Va. Jon Chase photo
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