Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Westmoreland Coal Company, Stonega Coke and Coal Company, Collection, 1915-1957, Accession #11336, Special Collection Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given to the University of Virginia Library on October 29, 1997, by R. Page Henley, Jr., Westmoreland Coal Company, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Biographical/Historical Information

The firm of the Stonega Coke and Coal Company was incorporated in 1902 to take over the work of the Operating Department of the Virginia Coal & Iron Company, and beginning in 1915, underwent a decade of rapid expansion. A complete collection of the records of the Stonega Coke and Coal Company can be found at the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Greenville, Delaware (see #10516-a for a full description).

The Virginia Coal & Iron Company then became a land company, deriving its income from rents and coal royalties. The Stonega Coke and Coal Company was controlled by Dr. John S. Wentz and had many officers in common with the Virginia Company, but did not have identical stockholders and directors. Stonega remained the Virginia Company's principal operating lessee, also leasing its limestone quarry from 1921-1950, and through a merger, was renamed the Westmoreland Coal Company in 1964. From 1902 to 1921, the Stonega Coke and Coal Company's Sawmill Department turned out construction lumber and mine props. The office of the Stonega Coke and Coal Company was located in the Minor Building in Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Virginia, which it leased from the Virginia Company after 1928.

Scope and Content Information

This collection consists of a incomplete run of 32 Annual Reports of the Operating Departments, 1915-1957, (7 Hollinger boxes, 2.5 linear shelf feet), and about 280 glass plate negatives of various charts and maps used in the annual reports, and of safety warnings, ca. 1919-1939, pertaining to the Stonega Coke and Coal Company, a large Southern Appalachian coal producer, active in Lee County, and Wise County, Virginia.

These are internal reports from the field to the main office in Philadelphia, which contained accounts of all activities of each department. Construction, output, technological change, wage scales, wholesale prices, recruitment of labor, accidents, legal cases, and medical statistics are all present. Many photographs, maps, plans, and drawings of all types of buildings and equipment are included. The officers for each year are listed in the beginning of each volume. Reports are given for the individual plants in Wise County, Virginia, at Stonega, Arno, Imboden, Osaka, and Roda, and in Lee County, Virginia, at Keokee.

There are also two bound volumes of annual reports for the Crab Orchard Improvement Company, Eccles, Raleigh County, West Virginia, 1924-1925, present in the collection. Prior to 1924, the coal produced by the Crab Orchard Improvement Company was marketed by the Stonega Coke and Coal Company, but on January 1, 1924, the General Coal Company became its exclusive sales agent.