Above: pictured is the original company store as it appeared in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The cost of the entire structure was between twelve and thirteen thousand dollars. It also served as a social hall and inn. The building was destroyed by fire in 1943. The store was then moved to the present day location.

The company store was open to all miners and their families. Not only did these stores offer general grocery items, they also stocked a variety of other goods including clothing, toys, tools, shoes, fabric, ice cream, and fresh fruit.

Ashland is located along the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek, one of the most heavily developed coal regions in the Pocahontas field. At its height, the North Fork valley held an estimated ten thousand people, some of whom worked for the Ashland Coal & Coke Company.

The tipple of the company mine was demolished in the 1980s and all that remains, from its nearly one hundred years of operation, is the company store and a few company houses.

Like so many of the mining companies in the Pocahontas field, Ashland Coal & Coke Company was organized by men from the Pennsylvania anthracite region. Several of the original stockholders were from Ashland, Pennsylvania, and for this reason, the company, mine, settlement, and post office were give its name. Most of Ashland’s leading stockholders and officers retained their interests and residences in Pennsylvania and operated the mines at Ashland as absentees. The leading stockholder and first president of the company, W.J. Richards, remained in Schuylkill County, where he served as President of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company.

Ashland Coal & Coke was incorporated in 1892. A lease was obtained from the Flat Top Land Association on March 18, 1893, and the mine was opened with a wooden gravity-feed tipple to load the coal into hopper cars the Norfork and Western Railway. The mine was a simple drift, since the coal seam, Pocahontas No. 3, outcropped along the hillside at five feet, ten inches thick. The mine produced more than 30,000 tons of bituminous "smokeless" coal in 1894, its first full year of production. By 1935, total tonnage from the mine hit 4 million tons - all of it hand loaded. The coal seam played out in the late 1970's and the company ceased operations in 1980.

Below you will find an original article from the Bluefield Daily Telegrah about the Ashland Company Store, a photo of the 1st President of Ashland Coal & Coke Company (W.J. Richards), a photo of a share of stock for Ashland Coal & Company, a photo of the Company Doctor Emanuel Torregrosa standing beside his car in 1917, a photo of old company scrip used to pay bills at the Company Store, and an old pic of purchases being made at the Company Store.

Please view the next page on my navigation bar for a complete history of Ashland Coal and Coke Company and associated companies, written in August 1968 by W. W. Walker, Chairman of the Board http://sites.google.com/site/mcdowellcountywvtourism/Home/history-of-ashland-coal-coke-company.

The document on the above page link is the only electronic file of this manuscript.

 

<div id=figuration tool found at */
   /* https://registration.weather.com/ursa/wow/step2 */
   var
Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools