NEW RIVER GORGE Historic Resource Study Kay Moor

The Low Moor Iron Company collection at the University of Virginia is very extensive. A guide for the collection does exist but it is cursory and does not provide a very detailed index. Therefore, researchers looking for data on Kay Moor have to search item by item through much of the correspondence relating to other Low Moor Iron Company activities. As much as the Kay Moor material as could be found was photocopied for deposit at New River Gorge National River, but a thorough search of the Low Moor Iron Company collection needs to be done. The collection is now stored in a dormitory attic for lack of space, and the University of Virginia has no time or money to put the collection in better storage, or to provide a much more detailed guide.

Very little information on the New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company's activities at Kay Moor is presently available. Evidently, as per conversation of Jack Bergstresser with a Berwind Land Company representative, the company has destroyed much of its historical files.

Newspaper files for many years of New River and Pocahontas ownership were not searched. Indexing for the Fayette County newspapers exists for the years 1900-1940, with scattered references thereafter. Once subsequent years are indexed, further searches for articles pertaining to Kay Moor's later history could be located. Time for this project did not allow detailed searches of the available newspapers; for that reason the articles used were all located through the indexes.

Most importantly, the oral interviews of former Kay Moor residents and employees were valuable in providing data on the town and mine. Further oral interviews need desperately to be conducted, Such a program should be a park priority.