Chapter 10
Coal Town Crossroads

In 1820, a farmer named McClean found a lump of material that burned; he called it ‘black rock,’ so the local story goes, and by 1830 coal was being mined at McClean bank, near Paradise in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. At the turn of the twentieth century, coal mining had expanded right across the Appalachians to supply the fuel for building the railroads of America. The coal companies needed manpower but they were wary of the new unionisation that was becoming ‘a thing.’ So, to counteract any cohesion that might form among the workers the coal companies brought in labour from as diverse regions as possible – from as far away as Italy, Poland and Hungary along with African Americans from the southern states, altering the demographic of Appalachia at a stroke.