Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994 TAG: 9403120002
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Planning is under way to place a monument near McCoy, an ex-coal town and the scene of a 1946 explosion that killed 12 miners.
Last week, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution declaring April 18 - the anniversary of the disaster - as "Montgomery County Coal Miners' Day."
The citizens committee requested the resolution, and hopes to dedicate the new monument in a ceremony April 23, the Saturday following the official day of recognition.
Coal was mined in Montgomery County for two centuries, from the days of early settlers until about 40 years ago.
The larger mines disappeared after World War II, but a number of county residents - including members of the citizens committee - grew up in coal towns or have relatives who did.
"Miners are like guys who went to war, except when they came home nobody had a parade," said Jimmie Lee Price, co-chairman of the committee.
"It's a big part of our culture, but we were forgetting about it."
Recent articles in the Roanoke Times & World-News on the history of coal mining in Montgomery County helped to re-ignite interest, Price said.
"That triggered what a lot of people were already feeling. People just started talking and it snowballed."
About a dozen people have been meeting each week for a month to plan the memorial and its dedication ceremony. Virginia Tech's Department of Mining and Mineral Engineering has agreed to help the committee obtain a memorial plaque.
"We're trying to support them in any way we can," said Chris Haycocks, a professor of mining engineering.
Plans are to mount the plaque on a stone located at the McCoy ballfield, said Kenneth McCoy, committee co-chairman.
In addition to citing all local miners and their families, the committee wants to include a memorial plaque for those who died in county mines.
Thus far the committee has identified about 40 miners who died at work. One of those was an 11-year-old boy who died when the roof of a mine fell while he was delivering his father's lunch.
Beyond planning the monument and the ceremony, Price said the committee wants to ensure research on local mining will continue.
"There aren't many miners left. We're seeing them go, one by one. Each year three or four of them die, and our history is disappearing with them, " he said.
"We need to set something in place so that all this won't be lost."
The committee wants to ensure that all areas of the county where mining occurred are recognized. Most committee members are from the McCoy area, but they want to tell the story of other mines, miners and mining communities along the Brush and Price mountains fields.
Price said the committee also is looking for participants from Wake Forest, the county community populated by black miners.
The effort to commemmorate county miners is long overdue, said Garland Proco, a Montgomery County native whose book, "Merrimac Mines: A Personal History" is scheduled for publication in May.
"It's a good idea. They are to a great extent forgotten people," Proco said of miners. "And yet they felt awfully proud about what they did."
A memorial will give the miners and their families "something to feel very good about. They can point to it and say, I was part of that."
Proco, who works for the U.S. Department of Energy in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is the son of a miner and the grandson of a Hungarian immigrant who came to America to work in the mines.
Proco's family history shares common ground with that of many other county residents, said Price.
"There's a lot of interest in mining with geneaology and everybody's roots," said Price, the son of a miner and the nephew of two men who died in the 1946 explosion.
Details of the miner's memorial and the ceremony to dedicate it are still being worked out by the committee. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday. Anyone interested in participating or helping to plan the event can contact Jimmie Lee Price at 951-2321 or Kenneth McCoy at 552-3211 or 639-6800.
"This is just expanding every time we meet," Price said. "We're finding that it's just like mining. You can't do it by yourself. You have to work together with other people."
by CNB