Elkins Coal Field

From West Virginia (WV) Cyclopedia

The Elkins Coal Field is the name used to describe a coal producing section of West Virginia that includes the following counties, in whole or it part: Braxton, Lewis, Webster, Upshur, Randolph, Tucker, Grant, and Mineral counties.

In about 1854 the New Creek Company, later the Piedmont Coal and Iron Company, began shipping coal via recently complete lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (http://www.wvrailroads.net/index.php/Baltimore_%26_Ohio_Railroad) (B&O), from mines located near the present-day site of Piedmont, WV, in Mineral County. Not long after this, Henry Gassaway Davis began selling coal to the B&O from lands in the Piedmont area Davis had obtained via the barter system, those mines being operated under the name of H. G. Davis and Company.