McComas

McComas is a small unincorporated community in Mercer County located at the intersections of McComas Road, Crane Creek Road and Giatto Road. It is about 3.5 miles southwest of Matoaka. The community was known as Mora before being named McComas about the time the first post office opened in 1884.

Although American Coal Company, started by James Otis Watson about 1852, is the company most closely associated with McComas, there were other operators mining in nearby coal seams. The American Coal Company operated the Crane Creek mine in a 72” section of the world-famous Pocahontas No. 3 seam. The Thomas Coal Company had a mine there. The Pocahontas Fuel Company owned the Sagamore mine in the Pocahontas No. 11 seam. Pocahontas Fuel Company was eventually bought out by CONSOL and they were mining coal in McComas as late as 1981. The preparation plant was demolished during 1991-94. ---coalcampusa.com

Men and their families came from countries like Spain, Italy and Wales and after slavery ended, blacks from the south came to West Virginia and the Appalachian coal fields to work in the coal mines and make a new life for themselves. There were no good roads or reliable means of transportation in the late 1800s and early 1900s. To accommodate their workers coal companies built complete towns and communities, including homes, businesses, schools, and restaurants, to meet the demand of workers and their families. Towns seemed to spring up overnight. 

At one time McComas was known as the largest coal camp in West Virginia. During a reunion of people who had lived in McComas, Patricia ‘Patty Spicer’ Smith stated that “more than 6000 people were living in the community when it was really booming.” In the 1950 census there were 1,292 people living in McComas in 302 dwellings. In 2023 there were only 50 to 100 people living in McComas.

Over the years McComas has had its share of mining accidents and disasters. On June 9, 1924, between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m., steaming rubble rushed down a hollow from the mountaintop above the Pinnacle Creek operation of the American Coal Company. The company had been dumping refuse on the mountaintop for at least 20 years. Water from the heavy rains combined with burning coal to create gasses on a disaster course down the hollow - devouring American Coal Company House No. 425 at McComas. The accident took the lives of 7 members of the DeWeese/Vest family. There was a second slide and then the third slide took the lives of three rescue workers who had been trying to get the family out of the house which was completely buried by that time. ---Louise Stoker, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, July 22, 2023. 

There have been several connections between McComas and Athens. Dr. Donzie Lilly, Sr. (1887-1964) came to Athens in 1913 where he practiced dentistry until 1961. He was the dentist who practiced the longest in Athens. In addition to his Athens office, in about 1937 Dr. Lilly opened an office in McComas where he and his nurse, Verlie White provided dental care to patients in the coal camp. Verlie also assisted Athens doctor Uriah Vermillion, who attended to patients in McComas as well. Verlie's Diary, reproduced in the Stories chapter of Athens We Knew, provides insight into the routine of traveling between the coal mining and college towns.

Former Athens residents Garland Elmore Sr. and Helen Sutherland met, fell in love, and married in McComas. Their five children--Mary, Thelma, Nancy, Martha and Garland Jr.--spent their early years in the coal camp. A new direction was set for the family when Mary entered her senior year at McComas High School and decided to attend college. Garland and Helen were able to find enough money to send Mary to Concord College, twenty-three miles away, for one semester.  Even though tuition, room and board costs were low, the Elmores could not afford for Mary to continue college, especially with four other younger children following in her footsteps. 

In 1950 the Elmore family rented the Samuel Holroyd house on South State Street, owned at that time by Sara Holroyd, and moved to Athens. Garland Sr. continued to work in McComas, making the daily drive between the two communities and picking up riders along the way who helped share travel costs. Garland Sr. later started a general contracting business and left his McComas work just as the coal industry there was beginning to wind down.

It was a good move for the Elmores. As it turned out, Mary graduated from Concord, as did all of her younger siblings--and their mother, Helen, who had never had the opportunity to attend college until then. All five siblings and their mother went on to obtain graduate degrees; all became teachers at different levels--elementary, high school, university and special education. Garland Jr.’s more complete story appears in Reflections on a Journey, alongside Verlie's Diary, in the Stories chapter.

Many other families started to leave McComas in the 1950s and 1960s as coal that could profitably be mined diminished. Coal companies understandably abandoned the area. All or most of the company houses and structures they owned were demolished. Private businesses and churches closed as families moved to other areas. Without members the Thomas Chapel Methodist church was abandoned and only the brick walls remained during a recent visit, as illustrated in the photo gallery. In 2023 nothing of the church remained. The schools were also gone. Children residing in the area were bused to school in Montcalm. 

The McComas coal mining boom and decline is not unusual for West Virginia. Many communities that were once vibrant and relatively prosperous as deep mining coal communities, like McComas, have been subsequently decimated by mountaintop (strip) mining and government regulations of the coal industry and the environment.