Mount Hope Coal History

Mount Hope played a very important role in the coal industry. In its early history, settlers began removing coal from a seam on the side of a mountain. Commercial coal mining had been under way since the early 1810s, but the area remained remote until rail transportation was developed to move coal from the hills. The completion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1873 provided that needed link. With the rise of the coal industry in the area during the early 1890s and the completion of the Loup Creek Branch line in 1894, the tiny farming community of Mount Hope was transformed and incorporated as a town on June 1, 1895. By 1910, its population had reached 1,200, and another 5,000 people lived within a four-mile radius. From the mid-1910s to the mid-1930s, Mount Hope became the largest commercial center of the New River Coal Field, with about 20 coal mines in the area. From 1910 to 1935, many coal companies headquartered there, and in 1915 the New River Coal Company moved its headquarters to Mount Hope. By the 1940s, the New River Coal Company had grown into one of the largest coal companies in southern West Virginia. In the mid-1960s, an explosion at the Siltex mine killed seven miners. The area's coal is known as smokeless coal, and railway lines through town continue to carry coal onward.

Mount Hope, West Virginia · United States