![]() C&O Historical Society
Quinnimont, named for the five mountains that surround the town, was first settled by Jacob Smith in 1827 for subsistence farming along a rich, fertile river bottom section of the New River. ![]() C&O Historical Society ![]() C&O Historical Society The mining towns of New River Gorge were initially developed in very remote areas, requiring the miners to live in company constructed houses. The houses were strategically segregated between racial and ethnic groups, black from white, Welsh and English from Irish, Italians from Polish, in order to help prevent unionization efforts among the miners. In spite of these attempts at segregation and polarization, each miner, no matter what the color of their skin or background, was there to make a living and depended on each other for safety in such a dangerous underground environment. As one miner said “We are all black at the end of the day when we come out of that hell hole.” ![]() Of the old Quinnimont, today you will still see the CSX railroad switching and holding yards, the two formerly segregated churches, remnants of the iron furnace, and the tall granite monument erected by his fellow “Coal Barons” to honor Col. Joseph Beury, as the first mining operator to ship coal from the New River fields. |
Last updated: February 26, 2015