Kay Moor, West Virginia
Kay Moor and its suburb New Camp was a coal town which was built beginning in 1901 by the Low Moor Iron Company. Kay Moor was a company town, in which the properties were owned by the mine company. In 1925 the mine and the town were sold to the New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company. By that time the town consisted of about 135 houses, and very little else. There were two schools, which were segregated, a pool hall, and a baseball field. There were no banks. The only stores were company stores, in which scrip was used for purchases.
There were no saloons, no churches, and there was no town hall as there was no town government. The town was administered by the coal companies which owned it. It was separated as Kay Moor Bottom and New Camp, which was the last portion built, and the remnants of New Camp, as well as the mines, are all that exists today.
Residents of the town were connected to the mine via inclines, a single track incline moved workers while a double tracked incline moved coal. The only other access to the town site was the mainline of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. The inclines were shut down in 1962, when the mines were closed and the town abandoned. Most of the residences in Kay Moor Bottom were abandoned in 1952, after mining operations were reduced, and most of the empty houses were destroyed by a fire in 1960. The mines and the remains of New Camp are visible today.
The site has been entirely abandoned and its location in the New River Gorge National River has led to its becoming heavily overgrown with vegetation. The metal structures of the mines are heavily corroded and have been the targets of vandals and souvenir hunters over the years. There remains a great deal of abandoned machinery which was used for mining in the first half of the twentieth century and the relationship of the mines and the company towns which supported each other is readily evident for those hardy enough to visit the site.
The abandoned mine and company town are located in Fayette County West Virginia, not far from Fayetteville. There are maintained hiking trails to access the mines at top and bottom with the trailheads accessible from county roads. The site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places but is not maintained other than for safety of the trails.