Coal Creek: Stories from Appalachia 

Hey y'all! Sarah here! Please support this channel by LIKING, COMMENTING and SUBSCRIBING! preciate y'all!

The history of Coal Creek/Lake City/Rocky Top is riddled with sadness! 😢❤ Thank you so much for telling these stories & keeping them alive!

The coal mines were a wicked place to work back then. And those who didn’t have the courage to live ended up under the earth forever. I feel for those women left to fend for themselves and their children. I’ve been a widow for 17 years and sometimes it feels like forever. Thanks JD and Sarah! I’m so glad I found this channel! Keep up the amazing work! Blessings always! 🙏❤️😊

Oh my, such tragedies in those mines through the years. 😢 Thanks for the story, Sarah and JD.

That’s so sad…😢. If only Tommy would’ve went with Jack. But The LORD had something else in mind. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. First of all, we must remember this fact. Good story about a terrible event. I thank you for letting people know of the evil that happens in our beloved mountains. Good job JD👍

Even today folks are scared to risk leaving these hills for a better tomorrow JD Sarah yens did amazing

Thank you JD and Sarah for another moving story. It’s so sad to think about all those coal miners and their families endured. God bless you! Love from Canadice NY ❤

This story bears a lot of resemblance to my family's history. Fortunately, I walked the path of Jack rather than Tommy due largely to my mamma's prayers one day in the 1940s shortly before I was born. I could have just as easily lived and died in the coal mines of West Virginia as many of my relatives did. God bless a loving mother who lifts her children up in prayer.

The battle of coal creek was a turning point for the American labor movement..thanks JD God speed Sir

A very touching story. Heartbreaking to think how desperate people were for work and how they were taken advantage of. As always a great story and thank you

So heart wrenching. 14:31

This story sends chills down my back. So very sad.

Such a tragic story, makes me realize how blessed I am with my job, thankyou for sharing it.

Coal miners worked and lived hard here in Georgia we have chalk mines both mines are bad on lungs and very hard work God bless them all keep the stories coming and God bless you all

Such a sad, and true story for so many . Thank you for sharing this with us.

Another Great Story! I was with them in that side pocket waiting to be rescued, almost as I was really there, Thanks JD. BTW I am going to send a longtime friend of mine to this channel. Because her dad was a coal miner over in Coalwood, West Virginia and Itman mines. Coal dust killed him as well as it did in my family back in the 1940's 50's and 60's. I tried to be a miner when I came home in 69 from Nam but I just couldn't deal with the slate and timbers cracking while being down there. After about three weeks I came out never looked back. Thanks again JD and have a great week end.

I live in what is now rocky top tn. Formerly known as lake city and before that, coal creek. I live a few miles from the cave in and the miner's circle. I had family in the mines back then and my grandfather also went to Detroit to avoid the mines. I enjoyed this story for so many reasons

I come from a long line of Ky. Coal Miners and our family has had its share of relatives dying with cave-ins . Thank you for remembering their hardships.

Story is so sad Makes your heart cry.😢😢😢

Another great story ,my father was a miner he hated it ,could not wate to get out . I was offered a job at local mine i gave them a big fat no! All the best from Worksop Nottinghamshire England uk. 🇬🇧

So sad but so much history!

Tragic story... makes you very thankful for what you have.. Though sometimes we forget just how lucky we are sometimes I try to put myself and their shoes I have to admit I don't think I could have made it back then but I guess when you have no choice but to be strong you have to be.. JD wishing you and your family all the best

What a great story! I was hoping it would end with Tommy taking jack's family north and helping them get established in a new life.

Great story. You told it well, it made me cry. I was lucky. No one in my family ever worked in a coal mine. I was the first railroad worker in our family. I had to check the car filled with coal and other items. I'm allergic to coal dust; but, I walked between the tracks and checked those cars anyway (because I had two small children to take care of). Did you know that many of those loaded coal cars go to power companies that don't store the coal outside of the coal cars. The loaded coal cars are emptied into the huge furnaces. When I learned that, I got to wondering what, or who, has been buried in some of those loaded cars (that were emptied into huge furnaces where no one can see or touched what went in there). I was scared of the railroad before I went to work there. I am very afraid of railroads and railroad personnel now. I'm very glad that The CSX Corp. took their tracks out of Morehead, KY. I don't ever want to live near, or work for, a railroad company again.

My dad grew up in a coal mining town in England with a slag heap for the playground. He new he wanted something different so joined the navy and ended up in Australia where he met my mom. He thrived. Dennis

My family were coal miners. The stories they would tell. Thanks for sharing.

Coal mining, from what I gather was and is still a dangerous way to make a living. What a terrible way to pass on. My heart goes out to them all. Thanks for sharing this my friend.

Makes me feel ill, how these families lived and the damage done, prayers for all you need them .🙏🍁✨️

This channel brings joy and sorrow.

0:02 This is a brilliant and thoughtful presentation of early 20th century conditions in the coal mines of the eastern United States. I would just like to add one comparison which can bring out the indifference and cruel neglect of the owners of these mines. With reference to the accumulation of gas which killed those 84 miners, owners of mines in England and Wales had known for 3 centuries (300 years!!) that a specific design of ventilation shafts would draw out gas and dust. By the early 20th century they were using fans at the surface points of these ventilation shafts to create drafts for pulling excess coal dust up and out. Mine owners of the US knew about these designs for preventing accumulation of dust/gas, but just could not be made to care enough to design mines with these ventilation shafts. To copy the English/Welsh system would have added almost nothing to costs. Mine owners in places like Coal Creek just could not be bothered.It is noticable that this mine was described as excessively dusty. A dust coated mine was a dangerous mine. The lamps of the time, or even a spark from a tool could ignite the particles. Thank you very much for this excellent video.

I just found your channel. I love it, thank you❣️

So sad, Tommy reminds me of all my uncles on my mother's side..they stayed in Grundy VA, while my grandmother left the mountains. All are dead from mining accidents or black lung😢

Just found this channel - loving it!!❤TY

This is so sad. My Daddy worked at a coal mine when he left the Army after Vietnam. However because of what they still called "shell shock" at the time (the term PTSD didn't exist quite yet, it was changing but we weren't quite there), he could only work outside the mine as the order boss. Even though I lost him young, I'm kinder thankful for that. Saw a lot of my older kin fade away and die due to black lung. There was always the worry of cave ins and such too. My heart goes to all these familys, goodness so many widows. Have yall ever done one about the Fraterville mine, was a bit before this I think.

Great story, love this channel!

Reminds me of stories my grandpa told me

JD that was a very sad and sweet story. Good one.

Enjoyed this story

It's so sad that each day, miners went to work, not knowing if they would return home at the end of the day . If the mine didn't kill you, black lung disease would. Each night, they had to put their affairs in order to face another day of the unknown. What a stressful life the miners lived . Many thanks, Sarah and JD . God bless .

My grandfather was a lifelong coal miner in Tennessee. My dad worked in the coal mine as a 12 year old boy. His job was to lead the mule into the mine, turn it around and lead it out. Luckily, that was not his job for long.

Thanks again for sharing, JD and Sarah, such a tragedy

So sorry i am 9 days late lol Thanks JD...Shoe🇺🇸

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This is heartbreaking. Those people were used and abused by the greedy coal mine owners. They were treated more like slaves than humans. I hate the people responsible for creating the realities that made those poor people indentured servants with no way out! They were pure evil! Thank you JD for your great storytelling.

Thank you for sharing this story with us. God bless you and your whole family...🙏🙏🙏

This brings back memories of my childhood living in Rocky Top formally Lake City and Coal Creek the coal mine did cave in and killed many died

I grew up in Lake City (Coal Creek) now known as Rocky Top.

Such a hard and sad time for coal miners everywhere...it still brings a tear when I hear of their struggles and losses. Thanks for sharing this memorial 👍❤️

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Mike here. As a child visiting grandparants in Webster County, WV, i saw the long ttrains of empty coal cars going up the side of Williams R iver, returning down laden with coal. I can still see the new shift driving up the road clean and later the previous shift driving down black with coal dust. Just up the road lived a "retired' miner, blue of face tethered to a large oxygen tank. Few have a clue what underground mining involved, especially before the success of the United Mine Workers Union. Coal seams vary greatly in thickness, from a mere couple of inches to many feet. Imagine working on your belly and knees drilling and blasting, shovelling and loading your own coal and pay based on what you produced less rent and your debt at the company store. And if you didn't get hurt, crippled or killed, the coal dust would win in the end. Black Lung! Even so, I would love to see coal being burned here in USA in Heavy, Medium and Light Manufacturing again.

How sad , those men had a rough job. Didn't get half the respect they deserved.

Thank you for this story so many people don’t know what it’s like living in a coal mining town

MY FATHER AND BROTHER WORKED IN MINES NEAR WELCH W.VA BROTHER LOST HALF A RIGHT FOOT DUE TO HIGH TOP COLLAPSE

My upmost respect to the miners and their families. They will be reunited in heaven, nevermore to part.

The sadist story I believe I have ever heard 😢 O' Yeller comes close 😢

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Both of my papaws were killed in a mine before I was born. One in bonny blue VA and one in Coal creek.

A lot of great men lost their lives in the mines over the years. Such a shame to but it’s the only work they had.

Did I miss where this Coal Creek was? I am from Coal Creek Va, outside of Galax.

Even if you didn’t work in the mines you could still have health problems. I knew a woman who never set foot in a mine but still had black lung. How? She ran the commissary outside the entrance.

Tragic. Reminder of the living conditions that drove the Molly McGuires to do what they did up here in Pennsylvania.

And all those widows and children were dispossessed of the houses so new miners and their families could move into the company housing 😞 And then came the birth of OSHA and unions which over the last decades has been weakened by de-regulation. Every time I hear a politician call out for DE-regulation I know someone is gonna get rich and many someones are gonna die. Regulations keep the labor safe and protected for exploitation. 🙂 I actually cried JD seeing the picture of the cemetery cuz we know some of those 84 were children 😞

What was the building in the opening shot? Was it a mine shaft? I have PA coal miners in my ancestry. What guts they have! And the need for mining will only increase…

Hey JD

Do yins know any stories from around Kentucky?

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Wow I wish he left yo go with his friend mine Ming us bad for guys they get duck die or cave in die. Awful

Now Detroit is just as filthy, and poor as Appalachia; just a different shade of skin. Exact same on violence, and filth though.