Mining in Western North Carolina played an important economic role in the state's history, but little has been recorded about the industry. The history books are filled with articles about frontier life, trade with Native Americans, railroad and road construction, the Civil War, and large mining operations, but history has taken individual mines for granted, and most records that still exist are found in land records. This book tells the story of how North Carolina miners and mines have arrived at where they are today.

Western Kentucky represented, in the time period covered by this book from the 1950s-80s, the bulk of coal mining in North America. Attributed to in John Prine’s famous song “Paradise,” Muhlenberg County is home to Kentucky's first commercial coal mine named the McLean Drift Bank. At one point, Muhlenberg County produced more coal than any county, state, or country as the largest producer of coal in the world. The massive mining machines documented herein show how this was possible through vintage and colorful photography. Production statistics are detailed for each piece of equipment, laced with historical facts and stories about the mines and mining companies that operated them. Includes a rare look at some of the old draglines that have been re-started and are digging in Western Kentucky once again thanks to new technology.

Mining in the western United States entered its great era after 1860 through use of the double-jack, black powder, hand steel, Bickford fuse, wire rope, and the steam engine. Those were the years of bonanza strikes: Henry Wickenburg’s Vulture Mine in Arizona Territory; the main hard-rock gold strike in the desert Southwest; Ed Schieffelin’s discovery of vast silver deposits in Tombstone, Arizona; and the Tonopah-Goldfield strike in Nevada, which netted over one hundred million dollars. Black Powder and Hand Steel describes the miners and the machinery they used. Otis E. Young, Jr., gives an account of the miners, particularly the Cornish and Irish, their origins, character, social life, pleasures, and, most important, their labors. The miner’s lot depended on the tools he used, and the author traces the evolution of the miner’s most important tools: from hoisting bucket to mine elevator, cold mining to dynamite, ore car to skip, hemp to wire rope, and slow match to Bickford fuse. Young reveals the difficulties of prospecting and mining two of the West’s most valuable ores, gold and silver, and gives readers a firsthand look at the challenges of working even the most successful strikes. A companion volume to Young’s Western Mining, Black Powder and Hand Steel is written in the same lively style—informative and entertaining for general readers and scholars. It is also well illustrated, with drawings by Buck O’Donnell.

Face Boss tells a story that few people have heard: what it is really like to labor inside the dark and dangerous world of a vast underground coal mine. With unflinching honesty, as well as considerable humor and insight, Michael Guillerman recalls his nearly eighteen years of working as both a union miner and a salaried section foreman-or "face boss"-at the Peabody Coal Company's Camp No. 2 mine in Union County, Kentucky. Guillerman undertook this memoir because of the many misconceptions about coal mining that were evidenced most recently in the media coverage of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster. Shedding some much-needed light on this little-understood topic, Face Boss is riveting, authentic, and often raw. Guillerman describes in stark detail the risks, dangers, and uncertainties of coal mining: the wildcat and contract strikes, layoffs, shutdowns, mine fires, methane ignitions, squeezes, and injuries. But he also discusses the good times that emerged despite perilous working conditions: the camaraderie and immense sense of accomplishment that came with mining hundreds of tons of coal every day. Along the way, Guillerman spices his narrative with numerous anecdotes from his many years on the job and discusses race relations within mining culture and the expanding role of women in the industry. While the book contributes significantly to the general knowledge of contemporary mining, Face Boss is also a tribute to those men and women who toil anonymously beneath the rolling hills of western Kentucky and the other coal-rich regions of the United States. More than just the story of one man's life and career, it is a stirring testament to the ingenuity, courage, and perseverance of the American coal miner. Michael D. Guillerman worked for the Peabody Coal Company from 1974 to 1991. Over his long career, his jobs included belt shoveler, timberman, shooter, drill and shuttle car operator, rock duster, and finally section foreman. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Marie, in Union County, Kentucky.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Vardis Fisher and Opal Laurel Holmes bring together the stories of all of the remarkable men and women and all of the violent contrasts that made up one of the most entrhalling chapters in American history. Fisher, a respected scholar and versatile creative writer, devoted three years to the writing of this book.

“The most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I’ve ever read.” —John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan On September 1, 1912, the largest, most protracted, and deadliest working-class uprising in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were fifty thousand mine workers, the nation’s largest labor union, and the legendary “miners’ angel,” Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis that verged on civil war, stretching from the creeks and hollows of the Appalachians to the US Senate. Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent—then broken. The violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict, as an army of more than fifty thousand miners finally marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and vividly told, this definitive book about an often-overlooked chapter of American history, “gives this backwoods struggle between capital and labor the due it deserves. [Green] tells a dark, often despairing story from a century ago that rings true today” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).