Scotts Run, West Virginia, 1938

Drought, Dust, Depression, and War No. 23
The Bitter Years No.3 ¹

Coal miner’s child taking home kerosene for lamps. Company houses, coal tipple in background. Pursglove, Scotts Run, West Virginia. Marion Post Wolcott.² September 1938.³

Scotts Run is a five-mile-long hollow in West Virginia across the Monogahela River from Morgantown. It runs along a stream by the same name flowing through the communities of Cassville, Jere, Pursglove, and Osage.  Situated on the thickest and most extensive coal bed in the Appalachian Basin,⁴ through the late 19th century the area was agricultural, farmers mainly raising livestock because the hillsides were unsuitable for crops.

By 1902, two coal companies had purchased land near the mouth of Scotts Run. The lack of rail service slowed the area’s mining development until the twenty-three-mile Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad was completed in 1916.^{5, 6} From 57,000 tons of coal in 1899 and 400,000 tons in 1914, coal production in Monongalia County soared to nearly 4.4 million tons in 1921. Much of the expansion was in Scotts Run.  During its peak years in the mid-1920s, coal companies owned 75% of the taxable acres with thirty-six mines extracting coal.  The five-mile hollow became one of the most developed mining districts in the country with at least seventy-three companies in operation between 1917 and 1942. Importation of workers resulted in a racially and ethnically diverse population About 60% were foreign-born, mostly southern or eastern European. The remaining 40% were equally divided between American-born blacks and whites.⁷

A spike in the demand for coal during World War I contributed to a rush to develop the coalfield. Coal prices doubled and by the peak in November 1920 had reached $12.53/ton.

Rapid industrial and mining development brought about a profound social change along Scotts Run. During the largest boom year of 1923, a coal industry publication description of Casswell said it was,

…a sleepy little village that has been there for years. Its residents do not yet comprehend what has taken place in their little community to transform it into a great hive of industry, with rows of dwellings, stores, schools, churches, power houses, generating stations, and tipples that lie in an almost unbroken line for five miles.⁸

The Scotts Run “hive of industry” declined severely over the next ten years as coal prices and demand declined.  A coal war in northern West Virginia with a disastrous series of strikes and lockouts lasted from 1924 until 1931.  The mine war threw the miners and their families into poverty and many of the operators into bankruptcy.⁹ Already suffering, the industry could not sustain the economic downturn after the 1929 stock market collapse.

The suffering of the poor in Scotts Run probably differed little from that of other Appalachia coal hollows.  Because of accessibility by automobile and railroad, it garnered national attention from photographers, reporters, social workers, and government officials.¹⁰

1. The 1962 exhibition, “The Bitter Years 1935-1941,” was Edward Steichen’s last as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s  Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.
2. Marion Post (June 7, 1910 – November 24, 1990), later Marion Post Wolcott, was a noted American photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty and deprivation.
   • “Marion Post Wolcott.” Wikipedia, as edited January 10, 2021. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org… Marion_Post_Wolcott.
3. Poos Françoise. The Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration Photographs. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2012. page 59.
4. “Pittsburgh Coal Seam.” Wikipedia, as edited June 28, 2021. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org… Pittsburgh_coal_seam.
5. “Scotts Run, West Virginia.” Wikipedia. as edited October 3, 2021. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org… Scotts_Run.  (I made a minor edit to clarify a sentence.)
6. “Wonder Coal Field of West Virginia.” The Black Diamond, 1923, 71, no. 6 (August 11, 1923): 180–181.
7. Lewis, Ronald L. “Scotts Run – America’s Symbol of the Great Depression in the Coal Fields.” Scotts Run Writing Heritage Project. Accessed October 3, 2021. http://www.as.wvu.edu….
8. “Sewickley Coal is Premier Steam Fuel.” The Black Diamond, 1923, 71, no. 6 (August 11, 1923): 182–185.
9. Lewis.
10. “Scotts Run, West Virginia—Great Depression era.” Wikipedia. as edited October 3, 2021. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org… Scotts_Run —Great Depression era.