Grant Town and Ida May

This is just one of the many pretty roads Aaron and I traveled on Wednesday in northern Marion County. You would not guess to look at this land that there are many deep mines under the surface--some active, some long since idle, and a couple with deadly histories.



One of the things I find fascinating about this area is the Italian heritage. Many families are descended from Italian immigrants who came to work in the mines, and the bakeries and restaurants attest to this background. Pepperoni rolls were actually invented in this part of West Virginia, although there still seems to be a little disagreement about exactly who made them first.

We passed this place on the way to Grant Town. I won't say what Aaron called it, but I liked the way it sat at the edge of the road on the little rise. I wonder if it had been a boarding house, a store, a hotel? Hard to say. It may have just been always a residence.

Coal still drives a large part of the economy in this part of West Virginia, although nothing like its heyday. The roads are narrow and twisting, and as you can see in this photo there's no extra room for the big coal trucks to maneuver.



Aaron said that truckers will call ahead in certain areas because tow of them cannot pass each other in those places--like one he called "the dip and squeeze." If you saw the narrow little bridge and sharp curve with no space for shoulders, you'd understand the name. Trucks approaching on either side will call ahead to warn any truck coming in the other direction to wait. Of course, if you're traveling without a radio, you're on your own.

This is the Grant Town power plant where Aaron works. As I understand it, this plant is a recycling plant--they use coal waste from other power plants to generate more energy.

And this is a former strip mine site. Would that all strip mines were reclaimed as well as this one.

On another part of the reclaimed mine, a small forested knoll rose above the landscape. The reason it wasn't tampered with? There is an old graveyard hidden beneath the trees. We didn't investigate as we weren't dressed for hiking, but one day I'd like to go back there.

The post office at Ida May (pronounced, I'm sure, Idy May) is located beside what used to be the mining company's company store. Ida May once was a thriving mine community. It is the tunnels from the old mine that run under the ridge where Aaron's house is located.

There is so much to see in Marion County--the abandoned railroad trestles, the rail trail, The Farmington monument and Monongah. Not all of its history is pretty, but it is filled with stories of people making a living in a dangerous industry, of immigrants making a home in a new place, of ghost stories and small towns and small farms. Sometimes getting off the beaten track, away from the usual tourist destinations, brings the biggest rewards and understanding of people and their place.