A drive through the Derby coal camp outside of Appalachia, Virginia. One of the nicer coal camps
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Published 2016-11-19
All Comments (15)
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Thank you for posting this. My sister and brother were both born in Derby at home, delivered by Dr. Snead, and I was born in Norton. My parents lived here until 1959 when they moved to Orlando Fl. My dad was Ernest Hill, but everyone called him Cole Bill and my mom Audrey. A few families that lived there while my parents did, were The Hart's, Auer's, Trigg, Millers, Bush, Stapleton & Rivers.
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My mother was born in Derby in 1930 and lived there until she was 16. My Grandfather worked in the mines. I hope to visit there soon.
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Looks like a special camp - all the brick. Solid.
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Nice video! I spent a lot of time in Derby as a kid as my Grandparents lived there, I recently rode through Derby for the first time in 20+ years and has changed some from what i remembered
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Thank you for the memories. We lived 8 houses down from the church, on the right. The house is gone but the memories live on. I was 5 years old then, I'm now in my sixties and live in Richmond, Va. My dad was a coal miner, and my mother raised 9 of us kids, on a coal miner's salary. Derby had a store, a school, and a movie theater. I remember walking to the derby mines, playing in preacher's Creek, and roaming the hills all around the area. Wonderful memories, but the times were hard.
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Grew up there during the summers my grandparents and uncles all lived in those coal houses. All were coal miners died of black lung too . Thank God my father got out of there and moved to Florida but sure have alot of memories Thanks for sharing
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Great video Shane. My father said most of the black miners came from Louisiana that lived in Derby and Appalachia and some stayed long enough to retire from Westmoreland Coal Co. They were hard workers and very dedicated and by and large treated fairly. If you get a chance do a video in Stonega, Va. My father grew up there. Anyway excellent work as always.
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Very neat, my great grand parents (Jones) lived in one of the coal homes and remember visiting and walking down the road.
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I've spent alot of weekends there as my grandparents lived there for nearly 30 years...You have to be creative there as a kid bc there is literally nothing to do..Hard to even find other kids to play with bc if the 5 that lived there left your alone...Kinda crazy seeing it now that im a little older looks very rundown it didn't look like that then..Thanks for posting have great memories of the place
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james good job, good research
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I need to go explore that area sometime. My great-grandmother (originally a Simmons, BTW) lived most of her adult life in Osaka.
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Due too Stonega Coal Company and Westmoreland Coal Company recruiting diverse group of people there was half as much racism throughout the early years in our area
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shane do you know dr, larry fleenor from big stone, he has written several books about the coal camps history.
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Gray black, cloudy, depressing day, misarble terrible gray black day, kill me now, just kill me now.
