Community Life in a Coal Camp

Community Life in a Coal Camp. Whipple. , Coal companies often paid miners in scrip, a form of private money, each coal company issuing their own scrip. So that it would not be confused with American currency, most of the coins had some sort of hole in the middle. Company allowed miners to “cut” or “draw” scrip against completed work. Often, come payday, a miner would be “scrip bound,” meaning he owned his entire paycheck to the company and had to start again in debt. Local businesses independent of the coal company did take scrip, but usually at less than face value., In many coal camps, there were cash prizes for the best flower gardens, but vegetable gardens were illegal. Why? Vegetable gardens fed families during strikes, something mining companies wanted to avoid at all costs. Many miners' wives planted beautiful flower gardens by the house but also secretly planted vegetables in the nearby woods. , Church was an important part of the social fabric of a coal camp. There was a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Catholic Church, each one identified on its own hill, Methodist Church Hill, Presbyterian Church Hill and so on. Coal miners worked Monday through Saturday and were expected to be in church on Sunday., The baseball diamond for the towns in the valley was in Whipple, but the Rialto Opera House and Movie Theatre, which served the valley, was in Scarbro. In fact, the town of Scarbro outgrew other camps. Until 1930 it was an incorporated town with a jail, city hall, town marshal, brick yard, Chinese laundry and bottling company., Coalfield baseball was very popular. Every coal camp had its own baseball team and competition was fierce. Miners who could play baseball were recruited and given work assignments above ground. There was a ballgame every Sunday in season and large crowds would gather to cheer for the home team. Some players even made it to the major leagues. Behind the Whipple Company Store was Ballpark Hill, the one ballpark for all five coal camps. Major league teams often played exhibition games in Southern West Virginia after their season was complete. In fact, the Cincinnati Reds played Scarbro on October 10, 1908.,

“Not a day went by that you weren’t in the company store.” , Jane Nicholls Burke, daughter of Superintendent of Oakwood and Whipple.

, The company store was the hub of the coal camp. Not only was it a commercial center, selling everything from automobiles to zippers, it was the focus of social life and contained the post office, bank, doctor’s office and undertaker. The Whipple Company Store even had a ballroom upstairs for the elite of the community.