Many of us first heard of Coalwood as the setting for the movie “October Sky” (1999). The movie was based on Rocket Boys, a memoir by Homer Hickam about his high school years in Coalwood.
In 1957, when Homer was 14, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Homer was inspired to learn how to build rockets as he watched Sputnik streak over McDowell County.
Website updated Nov. 18
“Coalwood, West Virginia, where I grew up, was built for purpose of extracting the millions of tons of rich, bituminous coal that lay beneath it.
My father, Homer Hickam, was the mine superintendent, and our house was situated just a few hundred yards from the mine’s entrance, a vertical shaft eight hundred feet deep.”
From the window of my bedroom, I could see the black steel tower that sat over the shaft and the comings and goings of the men who worked at the mine.”
from Rocket Boys
Homer Hickam, Jr.
Coalwood No. 1 Mine (1950s)
Coalwood today is but a shell of what it once was. During its heyday in the ‘40s and ‘50s it was a bustling community of over 2,500 residents. Today, only a few hundred people live there. Hundreds of houses have been lost as the result of floods. Many of the public buildings so important to the history of the town sit unused and unmaintained.
George L. Carter
George L. Carter built the town of Coalwood from the ground up. He envisioned it as a “company town” in its purest form, where the management of the coal company took care of the needs of all the workers and their families. While people in some other company towns in Appalachia compared their life to that of indentured servants, the people of Coalwood speak fondly of those days and of their clean, self-sufficient, hardworking town -- a community to be proud of.
Christmas party at the Company Store (1950)
When coal was no longer necessary to run the big steel mills, towns like this all over Appalachia began to die. There was no alternative plan. Coalwood’s fate is the story of hundreds of coal camps. Perhaps it is the story of small towns all across America. But take a closer look and you might see that this one was pretty special.
Coalwood lives on through the memories of the residents who remain and those who have moved elsewhere. In this film they tell us the story and say,
The Coalwood company store in 1928
“Coalwood is a small coal mining community located in the most southern county of West Virginia. Today, some people would call it a washed up little coal camp, and I suppose it is. But at one time, Coalwood was one of the most vibrant places in the entire state. It was an energetic,
bustling community that by
any measure was considered
successful.”
from The Coalwood Misfits
J.R. Hatmaker
Raise your hand to
HELP ME!
I am looking for old photos (or better yet, home movies) of Coalwood - any era, that I could use in my film. I’m especially interested in pictures of coal miners and photos showing Coalwood as the busy place it once was. Any interior shots of the Clubhouse, Company Store, Apartments, Machine Shop are also appreciated.
Email me if you have anything you can share.
About the Film Project
The shooting is nearly finished and I’ve been editing. My goal was to get the film finished by this October. Because I’ve recently been getting photos and videos from a few people (and because I’m finding that making a movie is difficult), I won’t have it completed before this years fest. However, I will be there showing parts of it and meeting as many people as I can who are interested in this project. Please find me at the fest if you you would like to tell a story about Coalwood or help me in any way to get this thing done and into the hands of everyone who wants to see it.
Most of the video clips and photos you see on this website will not make it into the film, at least in the form you see them now. I offer them here to let you meet some of the people who have participated in this project.
My sincerest thanks to all of them.
Caretta Elementary School
6th Grade (1951- 1952)
Hear an excerpt
from The Coalwood Misfits by playing this video.
Photos courtesy of the collections of J.R. Hatmaker and David Goad
“Coalwood was driven by events in American History that many in Coalwood did not realize at the time. They were mostly poor indigenous mountain folk or immigrants just trying to survive. As a result of an ever expanding industrial economy and thus a need for "King Coal", Coalwood was created by Mr. Carter as a unique experiment to see if workers would be more productive if completely taken care of by the company. With good housing, schools, medical care, dental care, top quality goods in the big store, and reasonable pay, Coalwood was the envy of the area.”
Brad Hatmaker
Highland Village, TX
Coalwood, West Virginia
Homer and a few of his friends from Big Creek High School taught themselves the science of rocketry. Throughout their high school years, they built and launched increasingly sophisticated rockets at “Cape Coalwood”, a coal slack dump outside of town. With the help of the community and inspirational teacher Freida Riley, the “Big Creek Missile Agency” went on to win local, state and national science fairs.
All the rocket boys went on to college and had successful careers, leaving their slowly dying hometown behind.
But the town of Coalwood is far more interesting than just as the “Home of the Rocket Boys”. Coalwood was once a boom town -- one of the most successful small towns in Appalachia.
My film tells the story of Coalwood - yesterday, today and tomorrow, through the voices of those who have lived there.
Rocket Boys Homer Hickam, O’Dell Carroll, Roy Lee Cooke (1959)
Aerial view (1923)
Welcome to Coalwood
A Film by Steve Date
“Clean” and “happy” are two words I hear over and over when I ask residents of Coalwood to describe their town in the days before the coal mine shut down. At first, these words didn’t square with my stereotypical image of an Appalachian coal camp. But the stories these people have told me paint a picture of a model community, one that took pride in itself and was the envy of other small towns in southern West Virginia.
The Coalwood Company Store complex has been torn down!
Click HERE to see a new VIDEO clip about this important building.
Photo by David Goad
For more information on the destruction of the Company Store go to David Goad’s website at www.coalwoodmemories.com
To see a recent article about the demolition of the Company Store in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph click HERE.
Homer Hickam’s house, service station and coal train.
Coalwood Community Church & Clubhouse (2006)
Music by Alan “Cathead” Johnston
Photos from the collections of:
David Goad
Jim McMillan
J.R.Hatmaker
Homer Hickam
Dr. Robert & Jack Likens
MORE UPDATES & SOME NEWS ABOUT THE FILM PROJECT COMING SOON
