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   Kenvir History  - By Chris Jones of Kenvir, 1988.

  Appeared  in  Harlan County Heritage magazine.

 Early History of Peabody Operation.

  In the year 1918 Peabody coal company of Chicago, Ill  began mining  operations at Kenvir, Ky.
The Kenvir name was taken from the first 3  letters of Kentucky and the first 3 letters of Virginia.

  Kenvir is nested in a narrow hollow of Harlan county about three miles  from Evarts, operating under the name of, The Black  Mountain,Corporation. "Peabody began removing coal from a drift mine  which had been given the mine identification of # 30. The seam  thickness was about 38 inches.  Plans for the town of Kenvir was soon  laid out and a saw mill was built on Britains Creek.  Stands of virgin  lumber for the construction of houses ,a store and the tipple.

  The houses sprang up row after row with the last house exactly like  the first, These houses had four rooms and where somewhat better then  other coal camp houses. The inside rooms were finished with lathe and  plaster and outside were of clapboard siding.

  There was a front and a back porch each having a drop light  as well  as a drop light in each room.
In later years the houses were equipped  with indoor water lines supplying a kitchen sink as well as providing  water to the public buildings. The Boss's house usually had about 6  rooms, indoor bathroom and later a coal furnace providing heat to each  room.

   In 1926 Peabidy acquired another drift mine and 31 was its  identification number. The seam thickness was also 38 inches. These mines  were about a mile apart,  with each mine having its own tipple. These  tipples prepared and loaded coal on gondolas which traveled on newly  laid track that the L&N Railroad had extended from Evarts.

  With opening of the mine # 31 ,more houses had to be built and when all  were completed there were seven distinct areas; Namely;  New Camp, Official  hollow, # 1 camp, #2 camp, Colored Camp, Upper and lower 31 (Upper 31 being  above the Tipple and lower31 being below .

There were also six boarding  houses for miners who had no families. These two  story buildings were  all  just alike and had 14 to 16 rooms apiece, as well as a  Bath upstairs  and one down.  The other buildings that made up the town included two  fully stocked commissaries, a gas station, a restaurant, and barber shop.  A  drug store and club house, a 50-foot by 100 ft theatre  building,  a small
police station, a well-staffed hospital  and a confectionary which was  the last building built and today houses the Post Office.

There were  five churches: Black Mountain Baptist, Britains Creek Baptist,  Black  Mountain methodist which is now the Black Mountain Community  Church, and the Church Of God of the Mountain Assembly.

The two schools that served the area were Black Mountain Elementry School with separate classrooms with a large wooded frame building constructed in 1912. In the mid 1930's it was replaced with the present steam heated sandstone block building.  Italian immigrant Rock Masons handcut and
handshaped each rock that makes up the exterier of the two story school that now stands high on the hill above #2 camp.

In time the men who worked for Peabody like other miners throughout the county voted to be
represented by the United mine Workers of America.  Peabody Coal Co, unlike other mining companies gave little opposition to the union and soon local  4493, which is the oldest union in Harlan County, and remains active today.

    An extremely proud occasion for the miners as well as Peabody Coal  Co.  itself was when Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his first expedition to  Little America at the South Pole, ordered five boxcar loads of Peabody's  Great Heart Coal to take with him because of its high heat-producing  efficiency, the coal was  packed into 4,000  white sacks weighing 100  pounds each.  The coal left mines 30 and 31 bound for Boston, Mass  before  its journey to the South Pole. The year was 1939.

  Great heart which was mentioned above was a nickname given the  coal. It was named after a thoroughbred racehorse owned by Mr Peabody  himself. Their logo of the Red Heart soon was known throughout the  country.

   It should be noted that while Peabody's Black Mountain Corporation  was good to its employees such as providing an annual Christmas  celebration, encluding a tree treat to everyone and contributing  donations to local Charities,  times were not always at their best.

   There were explosions and accidents that claimed lives.  The long blast  of the whistle atop the tipple many times announced trouble.  It will  long be remembered the fateful night that the tipple at
# 30 caught  fire  and burned to the ground.  Instead of rebuilding, the coal from  mine 30 was was sent to the tipple at 31, which after the fire had  changed its shifts to around- the- clock.

   The decade of the 1950's brought changes to the area mines.  The Black  Mountain for the first time stopped issuing script as advance pay as  they had done earlier.   They also began selling off the houses one by one as little as $200 a piece.

    Their peak employment at one time had been over 840 men, but as the  decade continued many were laid off.  In 1958 operations of the Black  Mountain Corporstion  ceased completely. The large store of equipement  was shipped away and the tipple was almost  completely dismantled..

  A large washer plant had been installed at the tipple only a few years  prior to its closings.  This Washer was left standing and today its rusty  exterior reminds us of what use to be  and it along with a few  remaining buildings help bring on good memeories and stories of  Peabody  Coal Company's operations at Kenvir,Ky.

  Copied for Glenn Robbins By Gertie Eachus from magazine provided by Walt Thomas.

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