With all the guys on here from that area, thought that I would post this.
Wonderful Wheelwright
THOSE WHO REMEMBER ITS HEYDAY WILL REUNITE, REMINISCE IN LEXINGTON
They were coal miners who lived like kings. At least it seemed that way to the people who lived in the model coal camp Wheelwright during its glory years from 1930 to the mid 1960s and who will gather in Lexington next month to remember the town.
In a Floyd County hollow, Inland Steel Corp. created a town so perfect in the eyes of its residents that many reminisce about the amenities and privileges until the day they die. Miners and their families lived like no one else in Appalachia.
Judy Davis and Mary Baker Lamm, two Lexington women who grew up in Wheelwright and lived there until the early 1960s, are mounting a renewed push to preserve the memories of Wheelwright.
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http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/14414450.htm
Yeah I would of loved to seen wheelwright back then I have heard all kinds of stories about it being such a great place but you go there now and wonder how it could of been how everyone says it was, just really hard to imagine.
UKGIRL20 Wrote:Yeah I would of loved to seen wheelwright back then I have heard all kinds of stories about it being such a great place but you go there now and wonder how it could of been how everyone says it was, just really hard to imagine.
I know what you mean, hard to beleive.
yeai read that in the LEX Hearld the other day.. good read. u can find all kinds of old photos on the net
I never realized until reading the article about Wheelwright that Inland Steele provided so much for its employees. It would be interesting to look at some of those photo's.
I remember going to the bowling alley there when I was younger.
For all those interested, I will try to describe some of the amenities that the town offered it's residents. This is from the stories that were told to me by some of the "older" residents that lived there.
Once you crossed the "junction bridge" going into Wheelwright, if you wanted to, you would never have to go out of Wheelwright again. There was a hospital, dentist office, drug store, clothing store, grocery store, hardware store, dry cleaning shop, carpentry shop, post office, service station, movie house, fountain ( combination ice cream store and mini resturant), pool hall, bowling alley, tennis courts, swimming pool, golf course, grade school, high school, TV repair shop, shoe shop and funeral home.
The town had it's own water service, sewer service and telephone service. The company employed carpenters, plumbers, painters and electricians.
The residents could call the "company grocery store" with their grocery order and the store had delivery service to your home. If you had plumbing problems, electrical problems or needed carpentry work or painting to be done, the company would send out the serivice workers to your home to do the work.
The company even employed the local youths during the summer to cut grass for the residents.
The company built the baseball/football field and the gymnasium for the high school. ( The company had a baseball team as did most of the coal companies, that also played on the baseball field.)
They built the equivalent of a 5 star hotel in the town (The old Club House ) and had one of the best resturants in the state in the dinning room.
You could literaly be born, reared and die, and never have to leave the town of Wheelwright. ( To pay for the work and any other purchase made in the town each miner was issued a card, similiar to a credit card, made of metal that had a number on it. Money was deducted each payday from the checks of the miners.) The town also had several churches of different denominations and the company sponsered the little league for the children in Wheelwright and surrounding areas.
This is as best as I can remeber from the stories that I heard from the "older' residents of the town.
Here is a link that I found for the Russell Lee photographs of Wheelwright. Russell Lee was commissioned by the Navy to take photos of Wheelwright to preserve a photographic study of the town.
www.geocities.com/rlperry.geo/wheelwright1.html
RANDALL FLAG Wrote:Here is a link that I found for the Russell Lee photographs of Wheelwright. Russell Lee was commissioned by the Navy to take photos of Wheelwright to preserve a photographic study of the town.
www.geocities.com/rlperry.geo/wheelwright1.html
That's a great site! Good photo's