West Virginia is dotted with remnants of days gone by. Nearly everywhere you look, you can find crumbling, abandoned houses; empty, echoing factories; and even neglected, overgrown graveyards. In many cases, "No Trespassing" is posted and enforced. But not infrequently, you'll stumble across an old ruin that you are allowed to explore, and you'll have the opportunity to imagine what life might have been like for the people who lived and worked there.
This is especially true in West Virginia's New River Gorge, where remnants of booming coal mines and crowded coal mining towns now lie forgotten in the national forest. And perhaps the most famous of all the many ghost towns and abandoned communities hidden in the woods here in Fayette County is Nuttallburg.
Nuttallburg, West Virginia, was founded by John Nuttall, the English pioneer who first discovered coal in this area, in 1870.
By 1873, when the railroad arrived to the area, there were already 100 houses, 80 coke ovens, a coal tipple, and other mine structures. By 1920, Ford Motor Company had acquired the Nuttallburg mines to supply coal to its Dearborn, Michigan plant. The mine changed hands again in 1928, and was officially abandoned in the 1950s with the closure of the mine and post office in the space of just a few years.
Slowly, all the remaining inhabitants of Nuttallburg relocated, and now, the only thing left is ruins.
But what ruins they are. Although most of the houses, perched as they were on the steep mountain slopes to leave the flat-land for the mine, have disintegrated, many of the actual mining buildings remain.
From the huge tipple towering above the trees to the long conveyer sweeping down the mountain and up the other side, the skeleton of Nuttallburg still holds the power to impress. More subtle, though not any less interesting, are the 80 some coke ovens buried under layers of leaves and vines along the forest floor.
Nuttallburg is now managed by the National Park Service, and they have placed many helpful informational signs throughout the area to help you appreciate the history of this former boomtown.
The National Park Service has provided an excellent history of the area and directions for reaching Nuttallburg by car or by foot here. As noted by the NPS, be careful on the trip into and out of this area as roads are narrow and potentially rough.
Has Nuttallburg caught your fancy? Perhaps you might also be interested in another of the many remote, abandoned coal communities along the New River that can be found on nearby Red Ash Island.
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