The Company Store

The Company Store. Power, Control, and Profit. , A company store provided an industrial community with the necessities of life, as well as a means for a company to control its workforce. Lured by the lucrative prospect of mining coal for steelmaking, Henry Gassaway Davis and other investors poured millions of dollars into rapidly building a community here. This sture ensured that the workforce would find the things they needed when they arrived, including food, clothing, tools, hardware, and other necessities. However, by paying in company scrip, a type of currency good only at stores owned by the H.G. Davis Coal and Coke Company, owners also ensured that they could control pricing of goods, and that an employee's earnings would return to the company. Workers often became indebted to the company through store credit. Labor reform laws outlawed company scrip in the 1930s., [Captions: , Henry Gassaway Davis (right) was young man when he began investing in West Virginia industry. His political influence eventually matched his commercial success, and he became a U.S. Senator., These are examples (left) of scrip from the H.G. Davis Coal and Coke Company's Buxton and Landstreet (B&L) Store, once housed in the large yellow-brick building. The rectangular, brass tag (below left) identified employes, many of whom did not speak English, to track hours and pay., The B&L store (below) built in 1900 and the adjacent engineering office (far right) occupied high ground overlooking houses and railroad, mining, and coking buildings. The tree stump and barren hillsides illustrate the rapid transformation from forested to industrial landscape.