Lost and abandoned america

"The camp was beautiful when I came here, all painted and new." Mrs. Lillie Mae Phillips, upon her arrival in 1919. Trammel Mining Camp was established in 1917, one of many such settlements created to support increasing coal production throughout southern Appalachia. Built by the Virginia Banner Coal Corporation, Trammel is important as a rare survival of an early mining camp in Virginia. The mine workers were divided almost equally among local residents whose farms were sold to mining corporations, immigrants from southern Europe, and Southern African Americans. Trammel consists of approximately 100 company houses divided into four sections: Upper Camp, Middle Camp, Main Camp, and Lower Camp. The nine houses documented in Middle Camp are essentially representative of those found throughout the camp. Though Trammel was segregated, all miners lived in virtually identical frame, one-story, three- or four-room houses built along the narrow valley floor, "not much more than a crevice in the earth" (Eller 1982:183). Households were heated by central coal-fired stoves and were lighted by single light bulbs in every room. Each group of three households shared a single privy; none had running water. Before the mines closed, the Trammel community included the company president's house, a company store with a post office, a Baptist church, and a schoolhouse. On July 12, 1986, the town of Trammel and some 50 houses and lots were sold at auction. Middle Camp has since been abandoned, and only the church and some houses in the other parts of Trammel remain occupied.