In 1909 the Big Sandy Coal and Coke Co., later renamed Solvay Collieries Co., began considering the property that became Kingston. In 1910 a temporary store and office building, a six-room house, and a three-room house were built for the first superintendent and bookkeeper, and later that year a railroad contract extended construction to the end of the Kingston yards as between 400 and 500 men transformed the area from wilderness into a model mining community. Materials were hauled by wagon from the end of the C&O railroad at Westerly and from Lively on the Virginian railroad. By 1911 additional track had been laid from Westerly to Kingston, the population in 1910 was given as 400 people, and on June 23, 1911 the first coal was loaded into railroad cars from a temporary tipple. In March 1912 the No. 1 conveyor in a steel tipple was put into use. Over the next few years production increased, and the company acquired property at Westerly in 1913. In 1920 production reached 2500 tons per day, about 240 men were employed, the average wage was 10 dollars per day, and the company was erecting 175 additional houses to meet increased housing needs. That year Kingston had two YMCAs, one for white employees and one for colored employees, each with a bowling alley, pool room, moving picture shows, barber shop, showers and bath, a reading room with the latest newspapers and magazines, a soda fountain, and a library. Kingston continued to grow and soon became one of the most modern coal camps in West Virginia and the most populated community on Paint Creek, reaching around 2500 residents.