King Coal’s Deception

After exploring Matewan in depth, it was time to start the trip home. One great effort to improve connectivity of the southern coalfields to the rest of the state is the King Coal Highway, which is even eventually supposed to be part of I-73/74. Long story short: it appears to be little more than an ill-conceived fantasy.

We climbed out of Matewan on a ramp with a 10-percent grade that, due to the profile of the rock, was shaded at the time and would be shaded most of the time. Imagining school buses and trucks attempting to navigate this access road during the winter months was chilling. As we turned onto the main road we were greeted with a road only about five years old suffering some severe problems.

Concrete roads, when constructed correctly, should have no challenge lasting 20 years in drivable condition. Here, we could already see and feel signs of the failure of the concrete base, likely due to improper preparation of the land below the road. The odds of this being the case are compounded when it is revealed that the Mingo Central High School, the brand new consolidated high school, is having serious problems with land slipping problems. I wish I could act surprised by these circumstances, but this is largely business as usual in West Virginia. But it is disappointing that the citizens of this disadvantaged area were made some grand promises and less than five years out these promises are already clearly being broken.

Likewise, the road was never even built to interstate standards. For the most part, it is a two-lane undivided highway or a four-lane road with a grassy median. There are numerous at-grade intersections and driveways turning out onto the roadway. If this road were to be designated as an Interstate Highway, it would have to be upgraded substantially.

The singular circumstance where the new road truly is a godsend and an improvement over the prior route is over Horsepen Mountain. I once had the experience of navigating over Horsepen Mountain on U.S. Route 52 at night. It ranks highly on my list of terrifying driving experiences. I will take poor physical road condition over those geometrics any day of the week.

We traveled WV Route 44 into Logan and then WV Route 17 toward Charleston, going over Blair Mountain. The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the largest civil uprisings in American history and it was spurred by the desire to end the exploitation of coal miners and unionize. In recent years, the state has tried valiantly to erase this historical site by turning it over for mountain top removal, yet even on a drive through you can feel that there was something very important that occurred here. Coal is finite, history is not. There are many other mountains in West Virginia, there is only on Blair Mountain.

The other notable aspect about this route is that its curves and dips were the main route between Charleston and Williamson until the mid-to-late 1970s. While Williamson may not seem like a major center to connect to today, it was much larger 40 years ago and had a much larger role in the economy of West Virginia. This illustrates how in some ways, Appalachia has only very recently connected to be able to come of age.

In Danville we picked up the thoroughly modern Corridor G, which took us all of the way to Quaker Steak. Hooray! After a hot day of caching and, in my case, getting eaten up by mosquitoes, I needed some calories. We got our fill and hit the road, well, after making one more stop. Kroger recently did a major renovation to the Ashton Place Kroger and made it even fancier. It was indeed true. There is no competition, this is the fanciest grocery store in all of West Virginia.