Mount Hope's Coal Legacy

The small southern town of Mt. Hope didnt know what was about to hit it, when the Macdonald Colliery Company began shipping the world famous smokeless coal in 1894.  About the same time 3 other Coal and Coke companies joined the area; Turkey Knob, Dunn Loop, and Sugar Creek.  This would be the beginning of one of the most "modernized" towns in all of West Virginia during the 1900's.

The area of Fayette county would not be accessible until 1873, with the completion of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.  The first shipment of coal from the NEW RIVER COAL FIELD was made in 1873.  In 1888, Fayette County was producing 1/5 of the states total coal production.  In early 1894, another Railroad was built known as Loup Creek Branch, which connected the C&O mainline to MacDonald.  Within a few years, four mining opertaions were built within walking distance of Mt. Hope employing about 400 men.  This brought, businesses, homes, stores and offices and June 1, 1895 Mt. Hope was incorporated as a town. 

By, 1910 the town was a snapshot of modern, having a movie theater, paved streets and electric lights, a large hotel, a bank, drugstore, bakery, produce store, furniture store, several saloons and numerous other businesses.  Much of Mt. Hope's success was due to the fact that the town was not controlled by a coal company, most coal towns had only one company store.  Mt. Hope experienced a hiccup in its development, March 24, 1910 when a fire broke out and destroyed almost every home and building in the town.  With the help of the booming economy the town was rebuilt quickly with "modern" brick buildings in place of the old wooden store fronts. 


In the early 1920's Mt.Hope annexed a nearby town "Warner Town" and in 1921 the legislature granted Mt.Hope as a city and their motto is still in use today, " The little city with the big welcome"  Not long after this 20 coal companies had offices in Mt. Hope, and was the second largest community of Fayette County.  Althogh the population was never huge, the areas within walking distance to the city was impressive, people of that time claimed that 30,000 people lived within walking distance of Mt. Hope.


As with the rest of the country by the end of the 1920's depression had set in and the explosive boom was over.  Just as the economy started to lookup, our nation began fighting a war, WWII.  Coal began to decline in the 1950's and within a decade southern West Virginia lost about 1/3 of their population.  The US Census of 2009 reported the population of Mt. Hope to be 1, 487.


Works Cited: http://www.wva-usa.com/history/mthope/coal.php