When coal was king, Welch, West Virginia, was called “Little New York,” with residents from all over the world and its own Coney Island. What’s next for Welch?
Joan Vannorsdall
The McDowell County Courthouse, scene of the 1921 Baldwin-Felts shootout.
Earlier this year, I read a story about Welch in the New York Times. Which followed the one I’d read in the Washington Post a year earlier. Both were long stories, built on largely negative statistics—and both left me with the feeling that Welch was trying, really trying…but it was doomed to fail.
I went to Welch to see and listen and understand for myself how this small mountain city in the southernmost county of West Virginia was doing. The town where John F. Kennedy campaigned in the spring of 1960, standing outside America’s first municipally owned parking garage. Where a century ago, legendary Matewan Sheriff Sid Hatfield and Deputy Ed Chambers were gunned down on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse by Baldwin-Felts detectives. Where America’s first food stamps were delivered in 1961 to an unemployed miner’s family with 13 children.
Russell Lee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1946, Welch’s McDowell Street was the center of the Pocahontas coalfields.
And where I discovered how a place that was once the hub of the rich Pocahontas coalfield, with eight department stores and 25 restaurants, is making itself known all over again by wearing its history proudly and focusing on its children.
It was just luck that I wandered into the Jack Caffrey Arts and Cultural Center when I did. I’d taken the back roads to Welch, picking up Route 52 outside Bluefield, driving the southern portion of the Coal Heritage Trail, a loopy chain of former coal towns connected by railroad tracks, with company houses lining the road and spreading up the steep mountainside.
Inside the front door of the Caffrey Center sits Jay Chatman, president of the McDowell County Historical Society and board member of the National Coal Heritage Area. Chatman is the author of “McDowell County Coal and Rail,” and many of the artifacts in the Center belong to him.
“In the 1940s, Welch had over 6,000 people. And McDowell County over 100,000—we had 55 mining operations here,” Chatman says. “Over the next few decades, coal production diminished throughout the county, and the strikes drove some folks away.” (Today, the city of Welch has about 1,700 people; McDowell County 17,600.)
“I think tourism and retirees coming here can help,” he says.
The tourism draw for McDowell County is largely ATV trails—over 340 miles in the county, part of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails system. Camps of lodging cabins have sprung up, a few historic houses have been renovated as B&Bs, and it’s not unlikely that you’ll see an ATV riding down Welch streets toward the next stretch of trail.
Joan Vannorsdall
Welch spreads along the Tug Fork River and NS rail tracks.
You may also see a trolley car in Welch—the only one in southern West Virginia, it’s said—and if you’re especially fortunate, you’ll get to ride with Jason Grubb, business development specialist and strong advocate for his hometown. You’ll see whole brick wall murals painted by renowned local artist Tom Acosta. You’ll see long stretches of beautiful rock retaining walls built by Italian stonemason-miners, the concrete smoothed with forks and spoons to assure their strength.
“Welch was the most ethnically diverse city in the country, with people coming here from dozens of countries,” Grubb says. “Architecture, culture, history—we have everything. Welch epitomizes everything the coalfields are about.”
Grubb is a member of Mayor Harold McBride’s “Team Welch,” who are on a mission to bring Welch into full tourism mode. “Let’s make it better, folks” is McBride’s challenge.
It’s hard to argue with a mayor who buys a much-loved Welch restaurant, the Sterling Drive-In, to keep it in business, and who spends his off-time rewiring and remodeling same. And who happily takes a role in the play “Terror of the Tug,” chronicling the 1921 murder of Sid Hatfield on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse. Written by West Virginia playwright Jean Battlo, “Terror of the Tug” has been performed more than once in 2021, the centennial of Hatfield’s murder.
McBride grew up in Welch, worked underground for twenty years, and believes strongly in his town. “I choose to live here because of the people,” he says. “People are the key to everything.”
Two people were central to the formation of a landmark partnership of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and McDowell County. Ten years ago, AFT President Randi Weingarten and Gayle Manchin (current co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission) formed Reconnecting McDowell, an initiative focusing on improving students’ lives and education as the necessary first step to regional progress.
With over 100 partners, Reconnecting McDowell has built a large apartment complex, Renaissance Village, to provide teachers and other prospective Welch residents with affordable, contemporary housing. It’s a beautiful 20-unit, mixed-use building, with a Brazilian coffee shop and local-crafts mercantile in the works for the ground floor.
Reconnecting McDowell has also brought summer programs connecting students with legislators, made on-site health care available to students, provided drop-out prevention programs and established college scholarship programs. The high school graduation rate has risen, the drop-out rate is substantially lower, and college enrollment has doubled. It’s unique—the only project like it in the country—and it’s in Welch.
There’s no denying that Welch, like most small mountain towns, has its share of difficulties. But with partnerships like Reconnecting McDowell and the energy of hometown city officials and employees, there’s good reason to be optimistic about Welch’s future.
There’s a cautionary quote from The Great Gatsby that’s never far from my mind as I travel our mountains: “I wouldn’t expect too much of her….you can’t repeat the past,” Nick Carraway says to Gatsby.
Probably he’s right. But in Welch, West Virginia, a lot of folks are working a lot of hours to assure that their place will bring people to live and work and play, honoring their past in present time.
WELCH: DID YOU KNOW?
- It has the largest number of veterans per capita in America.
- The year 2021 will mark the 103rd annual Veterans Day parade—another American record.
- Actor and game show host Steve Harvey was born in Welch.
- Author Jeannette Walls (“The Glass Castle”) attended Welch High School.
- Coalwood, in McDowell County off Route 16, was childhood home of Homer Hickam, NASA engineer and author of the memoir “October Sky.”
- Welch’s Veterans Park is home to the West Virginia boxcar from the French Gratitude Train, sent by the French as thanks for American assistance during and after World War II.
The story above first appeared in our November / December 2021 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!