Pocahontas Coalfield
Pocahontas Coalfield, which is also known as the Flat Top-Pocahontas Coalfield, is located in Mercer County/McDowell County, West Virginia and Tazewell County, Virginia. The earliest mining of coal in the coalfield was in Pocahontas, Virginia in 1883 at Pocahontas Mine No. 1, now on the National Register of Historic Places. The coal seams—Pocahontas No. 3, No. 4, No. 6, and No. 11—are some of the best coal to be found in the world, and are rated at 15,000 Btu/lb (35 MJ/kg). This operation, replete with beehive coke ovens, eventually spawned the Pocahontas Fuel Company, which operated mines in Virginia at Boissevain and Amonate, and in West Virginia at Jenkinjones, Bishop, and Itmann. History Later Pocahontas Fuel Company (formerly Pocahontas Consolidated) was absorbed into Consolidation Coal Company, which still mines coal at Amonate. The mines at Pocahontas were able to ship coal when the Norfolk & Western Railway bought the New River Railroad and extended a branch line there. As this railroad was extended westward through Mercer and McDowell Counties the coalfield expanded with it. By the mid-1880s the Bramwell area was booming with mines at Coopers and Freeman. Coal mines continued to open through the 1890s as the Norfolk &