Coal mining became central to Ansted and the surrounding New River Gorge region soon after the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was completed in 1873. The nearby Hawks Nest mine was among the earliest, growing from the Gauley-Kanawha Coal Company, organized in 1872 by Dr. David T. Ansted and George W. Imboden, which opened a mine below the summit of Gauley Mountain the following year and in 1875 became the Hawks Nest Coal Company. Coal was carried from Ansted down to railroad cars at the bottom of the gorge by mine car tramways. The area also became the site of West Virginia's first coal strike. On January 12, 1880, after operators at Coal Valley, present-day Montgomery, told their union miners that competition from Hawks Nest was hurting business, Coal Valley miners went to Hawks Nest and threatened harm if the miners there kept working. William N. Page, manager of the Hawks Nest mine, sought help from Fayette County Sheriff C.H. McClung, who offered none, fearing loss of votes in the coming election. Governor Henry Mason Matthews then ordered West Virginia National Guard troops to Hawks Nest, order was restored soon after they arrived, and several Coal Valley miners were charged with intimidation in the Fayette County Civil Court.