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Bonny Blue – what happened to the coal camp

Gale / Uncategorized /

Story found at http://www.miningtopnews.com/stragglers-stories-all-thats-left-of-coal-town.html

Stragglers, stories all thats left of coal town

Sunday, January 28th 2007

BONNY BLUE This once-booming coal camp is testament to what can happen when bustle goes bust.

Some Richmonders may have been surprised last week when a University of Virginia study disclosed the capital city’s population has shrunk 2.9 percent since 2000. For the few stragglers in Bonny Blue, that’s a statistical hiccup.

To see what population decline really means, you have to come to the far western reaches of the state, to Lee County, to Bonny Blue. In the past 50 years, the community outside St. Charles has all but disappeared, its collapse a microcosm of what has been happening throughout Virginia’s coalfields for decades as small towns wedded to the fortunes of coal have evaporated and disappeared from state maps.

Few now remember that in the 1930s, when Northern Virginia was a mere backwater and Richmond was surrounded by farm fields, the state’s coal counties were thick with people and economic opportunity. One of the counties, Wise, was the second most populous in the state, behind only Pittsylvania.

Bonny Blue, for decades at the center of the economic hubbub that pushed the coalfield population higher, is quiet and still today. Where the Blue Diamond Coal Co. once housed its 1,200 miners in company-owned homes and several packed boardinghouses in the coal camp, there remain but several dozen crumbling homes scattered over the rugged terrain, in deep hollows and along wooded ridges.

Residents long ago said goodbye to the company store, along with the post office, the boardinghouses, the buses and taxis, the company police force, the company doctors and the Bonny Blue elementary school. Gone too is the tennis court that once sat on Big Dude Hill, the neighborhood that took its name from the fact that its homes were reserved for coal company bigwigs. The coal ran out, and so did the people.

“This has changed so much, you wouldn’t think it’s the same place,” said 93-year-old Velena Rigsby, a tiny, wizened woman who spends her days in her small home in Pot Branch Hollow with her space heater cranked to full blast. “Everybody had a job back then, and things were different. It’s a peaceful place now, ain’t got no wild people living here.”

Pot Branch Hollow is one of the former neighborhoods of Bonny Blue. Essentially, it is a string of small homes along a band of asphalt that quickly turns into two muddy ruts. Dogs, chickens and cats wander across the small yards in front of the houses and along a shallow creek that runs through the hollow. Bits of rusting iron scraps litter the landscape.

“It’s real gloomy and desolate down there at this time of the year,” said Harold Catron.

Catron, a native of Pot Branch Hollow, is one of the many residents who fled Bonny Blue when the coal company started shutting down operations in the 1950s. While other men took their families to Ohio and Michigan looking for work in the auto industry, Catron enlisted in the Army.

From there, he joined the state Department of Corrections, where he rose through the ranks until he retired as manager in the department’s Inspector General’s Office. Today he lives in Charlotte Court House in Southside Virginia, where he raised his three kids, and he never considered returning to Bonny Blue or Pot Branch Hollow.

“I would have never have wanted to raise those children back there,” he said.

Still, Catron recalls the heyday of the community fondly, and last year he wrote a 103-page book of reminiscences titled “Pot Branch Hollow, Bonny Blue and St. Charles.” In the book he recalls waking up to find snow falling through the roof of his house, hauling buckets of water from the creek since the house had no indoor plumbing, and helping to dig graves for neighbors who had died.

The book is full of nostalgia for simpler times, for a time when his family made apple butter every year and nearly every family had a small garden plot. But, like the thousands who have left the area over the years, Catron sees no future for Bonny Blue.

He visits family occasionally, he said, and when he’s in Bonny Blue he tells people to let the exodus from the area continue. “I say to people, ‘Let your children know what’s on the other side of the mountain.’”

Source: www.timesdispatch.com

Bonny Blue story by Charles Rogers

Gale / Uncategorized /

I did a little research on the town and found an article written by Charles Rogers who had grown up there. While I don’t think dad had the somewhat idyllic existence this man describes (he was 15 and doing a child’s errands to make money where dad started working in the mines when he was 11), it does paint a picture of what it would have been like to live there.

You can see the original post at More Memories of the Great Depression of the 1930’s in a Place Called Bonny Blue, Virginia. (Note on webpage: Webmaster Note: This article was graciously provided by the Wise County Historical Society. It was previosusly published in the Appalachian Quarterly, September 1999 edition.)

I love the the article because my dad may have gone swimming in the very swimming hole, and he may have attended that school, and maybe that’s where the nice teacher was, and I also think the article echos how my dad felt about his dog. Thank you Charles Rogers.

More Memories of the Great Depression of the 1930’s in a Place Called Bonny Blue, Virginia 

By Charles Rogers

I last wrote about Bonny Blue in the June, 1998 issue of The Appalachian Quarterly. Bonny Blue had a population of about 1000 in its hey day. All the hollows and hills had a suitable name that every one could identify with. The homes that were “below the store” were the best and were reserved for the foremen and salaried employees. Next was “Big Dude Hill,” these houses were reserved for bosses and store clerks and other “Big Shots” as they were called.

The miners and their families lived in the rest of the camp. The places were named Mayflower Hollow, Magazine Hollow, and Monitor Hill. Also, Fairview Hill, Jacks Branch, Tank Hill and School House Hill.

My family lived in Mayflower. We thought it was the best place to live out of any of the miners’ homes. The houses there were the last to be built in Bonny Blue. There were only four rooms and no bath room. We were cramped as there were seven in our family. We made out, under the circumstances, as best we could. My Dad was still working in the underground mines when my brother Harold got married, and moved away. That gave the rest of us more room in the house. By this time the next oldest boy in the family, Chester, went to work in the underground mines. As for myself I was still in school and doing odd jobs for spending money. I would do grocery shopping for two or three families. I would combine the orders and get discounts to keep for myself, plus the ten cents I got for doing the shopping. I was fifteen and times were still very hard. There were some government work projects starting about that time. Some were WPA, PWA, CCC, Green Thumb and Happy Papas and also the hydro electric dam on Clinch River in East Tennessee.

Age fifteen was a wonderful time in my life even though it was still in the depression years. I spent my days hanging out at the “Y” as it was called by everyone. There was a restaurant, a movie theater, and a pool room in the “Y”. It was the meeting place for the teenagers and other young people.

In those days there was a bountiful supply of native chestnuts in the fall of the year. There were chestnut groves in the mountains where one could pick up two or three gallons in a very short time. I would sometimes gather them and stand outside of the bath house and sell them, one pint for a dime. The bathhouse was a public shower that the miners used before going home as they had no inside plumbing in their homes. The living conditions were like we sometimes see on TV of some third world countries. We and most families in Bonny Blue slept on straw mattresses. My mother would buy new straw in the fall of the year to fill the mattresses.

Saturday night was special because some people had saved or got credit to buy the new invention…Radio! Saturday night was when the Grand Old Opry from Nashville, Tennessee came on. In those days, when radio was new, to get a good reception you would have to attach a long copper wire from the radio to a high place in a tree or a hill that was higher than the surrounding area. Before all this took place, there was only one radio in Lee County and that was at the hardware store in Saint Charles. Some of the people would gather there at about five o’clock to listen to their favorite programs, one was Amos & Andy and the other was Lum & Abner.The other recreation in Bonny Blue was riding up and down the mountain on the “Man Car,” as it was called. It was pulled up the mountain by a cable that was about three inches in diameter with a hoist at the top of the mountain. The operator of the cable would accommodate people on Sundays by letting them ride up and back. Some were lovers just out having fun and others were folks bringing their kin folks from out of town to ride up to see the mountain.

The depression was taking its toll on most of the families that lived in Bonny Blue. Most did not have enough food, and the work in the mines was slack; sometimes only enough work for one or two days a week. The miners tried to supplement food for their families by hunting and fishing. Some of the children were malnourished, and their clothes were in tatters. The miners could not look elsewhere for work because if they did the coal company would put them out of their houses.

The Tree That God Grew

During the summertime when work at the mines was slack, folks went fishing. One day, during the summer when I was fifteen, my Dad took me and my brother Stanford (who was 12 years of age) fishing. We got all of our fishing poles together. Our neighbor George said he wanted to go too. It was in the late afternoon when we arrived at the Powell River near Woodway, VA. We intended to camp out all night. We went down to the river along a rock ledge. Some time later that night it began to rain. We didn’t worry as the rock ledge over us would keep us dry. Suddenly there was a flash flood and the river rose up past the ledge on both ends. We had no escape and the river was getting dangerously close. My Dad looked around for any means of escape, when he saw a tree that had grown up beside the rock ledge. It was about nine feet to the top of the ledge. George went up on top, first so that he could pull me and my brother up after we reached the top of the tree. That left my Dad still under the ledge and the river was really getting up. Dad had to hurry and try to climb the tree to safety. He made it to the top, and my father said that “God grew that tree as a means of escape just for us.”

Bill Dooley’s “Model T”

The roads in Bonny Blue were not paved and in the winter they were just mud and ruts. The cars would try going fast up the road trying to get enough momentum so they would not get stuck in the ruts. Some would skid and go in the ditches except for Bill Dooley’s “Model T”. Bill Dooley was a friend of the Rogers’ family and when we needed to go any place old Bill Dooley and his “Model T” was always ready to go. Where others got stuck in the ruts or the ditches, old Bill had no trouble. Bill knew all about “Model T” Fords, if a tire went flat he would jack up the wheel and fix it on the spot. His “Model T” car did not have a fuel pump so it would not run if the grade was too steep. Well, old Bill Dooley knew how to fix that problem; he would just turn his car around and back up the road and let gravity take the place of a fuel pump!

Telephones

There were no telephones in Bonny Blue back then except a very few people that the coal company deemed worthy to be put on the company phone lines. Mr. Carson was one of those deemed worthy to get a phone installed in his home. Early that night the phone rang, and Mr. Carson thought it was the alarm clock, and thought it was time to get up and go to work. He got ready for work and looked at the clock and went back to bed. Needless to say, next day Mr. Carson had the phone taken out! The phones were the crank kind for local calls within the company. No one could call long distance from any of the company phones. Some people were afraid of telephones and would say: “I’m not going to talk on that thing.”

The Old Swimming Hole

It was summer and time to jump into the old swimming hole. There was a dam on the north fork of the Powell River at the Pocket Power generating plant, about six miles from Bonny Blue. Many people went there in the summer to swim. The boys and girls of Bonny Blue would walk there and swim and play in the water. Sometimes they would stay all day and then walk all the way home in the evenings. There was another swimming hole on the river at Cold Spring, behind a huge rock in the river, and was not visible from the road. This one was for skinny dipping! One of the boys in our gang dived from the rock and did not come up. Someone went in to the water and brought him out. We pumped on his chest until he became conscious. We got someone that had a car nearby to take him to the emergency room. He survived to come back another day. So much for great swimming holes.

Bonny Blue School

The school taught grades from primer thru ninth. The first year that I attended school at Bonny Blue was in second grade. Ms. Ida Gish was the teacher. Ms. Golden Smith was my third grade teacher. Some of the other teachers were Prof. Beeler and Ms. Fletcher. The school building was heated with a coal furnace, which gave out more smoke than heat. There was not any inside plumbing and as for that matter no outside plumbing either!

There was an outhouse privy on either side of the school. The one for the boys was used mostly for sneaking out to smoke cigarettes. There were many rooms in the school, also a large auditorium. The local minister came every Wednesday to hold chapel. All the students looked forward to this because it would get them out of class for an hour.

There were no school buses, no lunch room or anything like they have this day and time. The students brought their lunch in a paper bag, or a paper poke as it was called by most folks. Most kids brought grape jelly biscuits or apple butter biscuits for their lunch.

The school books were traded up every year, as very few parents could afford to buy new ones. The books were swapped around so much that the hardbacks were missing on some of them. Some children went to school barefoot until it got cold in the fall. The mothers would dress the children as best they could. They would buy flour in a 24 pound bag, because it came in a blue denim sack. They used this material to make shirts for the boys.

Paper Boy

My older brother, who was still at home, got me a job delivering the newspaper. Mr. Keck brought the Knoxville News Sentinel daily newspaper to the Bonny Blue store. I picked them up every evening after school and delivered them on the way home. I did not have a bicycle so I had to walk carrying the papers in a bag. At first it was just in the Mayflower Community where we lived; then they added on another route and doubled my load. The price of the paper was 35 cents weekly, delivered to the homes. Single issues were 5 cents per copy and 10 cents on Sunday. Sometimes the people did not have the money to pay. Some would pay later and some never.

Again, they added another route to my schedule, and now I was carrying three routes. The Sunday load was so heavy that I had to get one of my friends to help me. I paid him a dime, and we would stop at a little store and pool room on the route and buy candy and ice cream cones which we paid for out of the collections. Then at the end of the week, I would not have all of the money to pay Mr. Keck! This went on for a few weeks until Mr. Keck said that I would have to pay or give up the route. Mr. Keck suggested that I put the paper route in the name of my brother and keep on delivering just as before.

This worked out for a while. My buddy and I kept on buying candy and cigarettes and using the collections to pay for them. I would tell my brother that I had lost some of the money but he did not believe that. One day we stopped at the store and bought candy and cigarettes and lo and behold! Chester, my brother was hiding under the pool table. He caught us spending the collections. Well, needless to say, he fired us and promised to make us pay back the money, but he never did. That was the end of my first job.

Old Jake

Old Jake was laying on our front porch early one morning. I thought that he must be lost and belonged to someone in the community. I tried to make him leave, but he would not go. I went into the house and got some left over bread to give to him. Then I left him alone and went back in the house. The next day the old dog was still there, and so the dog just made a home with us. One day my Dad asked me if I was going to keep the dog, and if I intended to keep him that I should give him a name and buy a tag for him. I named the dog Old Jake. The tag would cost a dollar, which, of course, I did not have and had no prospects of getting. Well, I decided that I would run errands for the people in the community for a nickel and save the money for a tag. It took me about two weeks to scrimp and save; but at last I had the money for the tag. Then I knew that Old Jake was really my dog.

That summer Old Jake went everywhere with me. He would go to the store with me and wait outside until I came out. Old Jake was my protector. When we went berry picking Old Jake would go in front and if he saw a snake he would run back to me and jump up and bark to warn me.

I guess Old Jake was about the best right fielder in the world. There was a wide place at the end of the road so that cars could turn around and that is where we played baseball. On the right side was a high bank where Old Jake played. When the ball was knocked over the bank, Old Jake would bring it back and give it to the pitcher. Only one thing was wrong with that, when Old Jake got tired, he would go home and take the ball with him. One day two of the boys came to our house and told my mother that Old Jake had their ball. My Mom said to Old Jake, “go get the ball” so he went under the bed and brought the ball and laid it down in front of the boys. Old Jake was really a great dog!