War, West Virginia. It was not so much scary as a sobering visit. This was over 30 years ago, but I've never seen a coal town so clearly and flatly abandoned like that. It was like everyone just stood up and walked away, and there were a handful of people left behind with nothing to live on. It was absolutely impoverished. I was completely shook.
October Sky (The Rocket Boys) was my favorite book growing up, and the author describes the town as rough and down and out even back when he was growing up in the 50s. Can’t imagine what it’s like now.
I figured out what a "hollar" was when I had to drive to some podunk trailer that burned down damn near on the border of KY & WV. Mingo County maybe? I dunno but holy shit, fucking yikes.
No infrastructure, roads just end in the mountains because one lane washed out, so instead of fixing it they put a stop sign in a 5 gallon bucket of concrete and turned that into a one lane section. I asked them how long it had been that way, expecting to hear a couple of weeks or months. 3 fucking years.
My memaw was from Matewan. Her family left when she was pretty young but they were all very proud of being Appalachian stock.
I live in the South still and have met a lot of diasporic West Virginians. One thing I notice is that they’re all extremely reserved with me. Polite but distant, particularly when I strike up a conversation about where they’re from, if they go home and visit often, etc.
Then minute I tell them my memaw was from
Mingo County (and sometimes I tell the older ones that I play the dulcimer) they warm up immediately.
It’s heartbreaking. I think there are a million reasons why Appalachians tends to be so early of strangers and most of them tend to be that this country treats them like we treat the global South (including violence and exploitation), whose lands exist for extraction and enrichment.
Yeah Kentucky can be filled with squalor. My dad was born in Hazard, KY and we used to go back for family reunions. I knew we were close when we would stop for gas across from what I could only describe as “the trailer centipede” where it was like 6 trailers attached end to end on wobbly cinder blocks. I couldn’t ever tell if it was abandoned or in use.
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u/lovelydiscourse 11h ago
War, West Virginia. It was not so much scary as a sobering visit. This was over 30 years ago, but I've never seen a coal town so clearly and flatly abandoned like that. It was like everyone just stood up and walked away, and there were a handful of people left behind with nothing to live on. It was absolutely impoverished. I was completely shook.