This building is in a complex of similar buildings that now house a mine equipment fabrication company. It was built by the New River & Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company, but I don’t know when. It is located at the center of what was then a coal company town called Layland, in Fayette County West Virginia. This complex appears to have been a full service center for the surrounding mines and the rail equipment that hauled the coal out. They obviously had skilled stone masons on staff – all these main buildings are built of the same hand-cut stone. Not much is left of the houses at this point, just a couple of the better built manager’s houses along the county road.

I also have a photograph of a blueprint of the engineer’s drawing of the entire complex. This shows the location of each house, the roads, railroad tracks, and the entrances to two mines in addition to the industrial buildings. It is attached below, for what it is worth at this size. The blueprint is dated 1922, but I think this drawing was made long after the complex was built because it is showing the location of several houses with hatch lines and a note that they were burnt.

The housing is in two sections. In the middle of the smaller section a larger building is labeled as follows: Mt. Airy Baptist Church (Colored). I have been reading lately about the formation of the state of West Virginia and the role race and slavery played. I read that in 1890 there were no black men employed in the mines in West Virginia, but that by 1910 there were many. And the real surprise for me was they were paid the same wage as white workers. Though perhaps that wage, the conditions in the mines, and the circumstances in the company towns were not much better than slavery itself.

Both images were made with: 50mm Zeiss Makro-Planar ZF.2, Nikon 800e, Lr4, Ps CS6.