Beckley Exhibition Mine 1999

By BILL ARCHER

     A handful of students gasped as Ronnie Greer killed the flame on his carbide light and the Beckley Exhibition Mine became dark.

     "Don't wait for your eyes to adjust," Greer, a 17-year veteran underground coal miner and seven-year veteran tour guide said. "This is total darkness. Your eyes won't get used to it."

     Water dropped from the rock roof above. A tour group of 30 St. Albans Elementary School fourth graders sat in silence as though they were absorbing the darkness.

     In a minute or so, Greer opened the valve on the tiny carbide light and flicked the striker. A jet-like blue flame illuminated posts, roof bolts, machinery, the faces of the 30 young people and about a half-dozen adults. Greeer spit on the mine floor and resumed his narrative.

     Since 1962, veteran coal miners have taken tourists underground for a glimpse of the interior of a low seam coal mine. The City of Beckley opened the state's first exhibition mine on June 23, 1962, after having discovered the mine entrance about a decade earlier while grading for New River Park. Beckley had acquired the property in 1953 as a gift from the New River Coal Co.

     "We have between 50,000 to 60,000 visitors per year," mine director Renda Morris said. The mine opens annually on the first weekend in April and offers tours daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The gift shop, filled predominately with West Virginia-made products, was packed with visitors three days after the start of the 1999 season. "It's always like this," Morris said.

     Former Beckley Mayor Cecil L. Miller spearheaded the drive to develop the mine into a tourist attraction and City Street Commissioner D.E. Warden supervised the initial construction of the project. Miller, a former member of the House of Delegates during World War II, served as Beckley's mayor from 1959-63. During the first 11 years of operation, the mine welcomed more than 300,000 visitors. On July 23, 1974, the City of Beckley dedicated the Exhibition Mine in Miller's honor.

     "This is a history stop," Greer said to the occupants of a pair of low-profile shuttle cars, modified to transport visitors through the mine. The two "cars" were pulled by a mine "motor," or miniature electric locomotive. When speaking of his workplace, Greer referred to it in the plural, "mines," at all times.

     "In the early days, this was a family owned mines," he said between surprisingly funny jokes about "furry" creatures brushing against the legs of visitors and "silver-haired ladies" who answered seriously that they didn't want to get out and push.

     "The Sprague mines opened in 1910, and this mines closed down," Greer said. "New River Coal gave it to the City of Beckley as a tax write-off and this entrance was discovered when they were doing some landscaping. Now we show 50,000 people through here a year. We're making it into a gold mine."

     A 36-inch exposure of the Sewell coal seam is visible throughout the 700-foot-long course of the Exhibition Mine tour. Sewell seam coals are generally considered to be low sulfur, high-BTU metallurgical coal, used primarily in domestic and export steel-making. The dominant seams beneath the Sewell seam include the Beckley seam, Pocahontas No. 4 seam and Pocahontas No. 3 seam.

      "I have worked in 36-inch coal," Greer said. "Can you imagine working for 18-hours at a time in a space no higher than your dining room table just so you can put food on top of a table for your own family?"

     Greer, 50, a 1966 graduate of Sophia High School, gave a lively presentation. There are four "history stops" along the tour route. He mixed pertinent mining facts of the past and present with a smattering of decent, home-spun word gags and jokes. The young people giggled and a couple from Florida gave him a $2 tip at the end of the 50-minute tour.

     The mine employs 25 people in a variety of occupations ranging from sales clerks and maintenance workers to interpretive hosts in the restored coal camp community that surrounds the mine entrance. Structures in New River Park associated with the mine complex include a restored miner's home, a superintendent's home, the Pemberton Coal Camp Church, the Youth Museum and a souvenir/gift shop.

     "We only hire experienced coal miners to serve as tour guides," Morris said. "I require them to have at least 10 years experience underground. When I was first here, we had retired coal miners, but now we have some younger guys too. It's good to listen to them swap stories."

     Morris is proud of her heritage as a coal miner's daughter. Her father worked in low coal, crawled to the working face on his belly with the handle of his dinner bucket clinched in his teeth and died young. "Black lung," she said.

     Her husband, Eric, got back in the mines not long ago. He worked for several years, got laid off, then got his job back a couple years ago. The Morris' have two sons, Jeremy, 22, at West Virginia University and Justin, 18, who just graduated from Beckley's Woodrow Wilson High School.

     "I used to play here in the park when I was little," Morris said. "When I was young, I caught tadpoles in the lake."

     Morris has always lived on Ewart Avenue, not far from the park. After she and Eric married, they moved into the house next to her mother. When her mother became ill, she moved back next door to care for her. When her mother passed away, her family moved back into her home place. Morris is 43. When other family members return to Beckley for holidays, they converge on Ewart Avenue. "This is home," she said.

     The Exhibition Mine and Park complex is a growing concern. Morris is always searching for structures that can help visitors understand coal history. She recently learned of a tipple in Iaeger, McDowell County, and wants to bring it to Beckley. In addition, she hopes the mine will be able to start a new section this fall.

     "I think we do a good job of telling the story of the pick and shovel days, but we want to be able to tell the story of coal mining from the 1970s to the present day," Morris said. "All of our guides are really excited about driving a new entry into the seam. Once we're there, we might use holograms and videos to show how continuous miners work."

      New River Coal donated the property to Beckley where the mine is located, but Slab Fork Coal Co. donated most of the equipment that was on display when the mine opened as a tourist attraction. Slab Fork president S. Austin Caperton donated a coal-cutting machine, a conveyor, two old mine telephone sets and a drill. Even then, City Street Commissioner Warden was working to tell the story of modern mining.

     Since its opening, the mine has been a self-sustaining entity. "We run on what comes in through that door," Morris said. "The mayor (Emmitt Pugh) is my boss. We're on a budget, but the exhibition mine and all the parks in the town run together.

     "The hotel/motel tax and the revenue from the swimming pool and water slide aren't enough to keep us above water," Morris said. "We depend on the mine."

     Hulett C. Smith, then state commerce commissioner in the Gov. W.W. Barron Administration, delivered the keynote speech at the mine opening ceremony in 1962. Mayor Miller was joined by a trio of regional beauty queens for the ribbon cutting. The group included: Miss Beckley Nancy Kay Smith, Miss West Virginia Nicki Gagalis and Miss Rhododendron Delores Holliday. Hundreds looked on. The next day story in the "Beckley Post-Herald" indicated that 200 people toured the mine in its first three hours of operation.

     The Beckley Exhibition Mine is the beginning and the end of the "Coal Heritage Trail," a national scenic byway that winds its way through the southern West Virginia coalfields with stops in Bluefield, Bramwell, Welch and Mullens to give visitors a first-hand look at the realm of King Coal. Morris is one of the prime movers in the Coal Heritage Trail Association. "I'm doing something I love," Morris said. "I'm sure part of my love for this job is because of my heritage. My roots in the coalfields go very deep."

     The Beckley Exhibition Mine complex provides a wealth of additional activities for family fun. For more information, call the Exhibition Mine at (304) 256-1747 or 1-800-CALL WVA.