[Narrator] Nestled in the remote corner of Southwest Virginia, this region captivates with its rugged landscapes, natural wonders, cultural attractions, and outdoor adventures.

Experiences you'll only find in the heart of Appalachia.

Adventure guides available at heartofappalachia.com.

♪♪ -A coal miner's life, yeah.

So coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs ever.

♪♪ -[Dr. Aysha] Old miners that I've talked to, they'll tell me stories about working in what they call low coal, which is 36 inches, so about three feet.

So they're crawling around on their hands and knees, extracting coal in complete darkness a mile underground.

So I can't even imagine what that day-to-day life is like as a coal miner.

So it's super dangerous.

One of the things you have to be careful about, obviously coal is highly combustible.

But as you're mining part of the process, you're actually mining into methane gas seams.

So if your equipment is defunct or you don't have good ventilation, the whole mine can explode.

[explosions echoing] We used to be super concerned about this.

This was commonplace.

It happened all the time.

But it still happens, even with modern-day safety and regulations in place.

In 2010, the Upper Big Branch mine explosion actually killed 29 miners.

♪♪ [Narrator VO] The early 1900s in Virginia's Appalachia region was a time when coal fueled the nation's growing industries.

But the men who mined it paid a heavy price.

A coal miner's day began long before the sun rose, and his work was grueling, dangerous and unforgiving.

A miner's day started around 4AM.

He'd wake up in a modest company-owned house where his family lived in a coal camp.

These towns were tightly controlled by the coal companies with workers paid in company scrip, tokens that could only be spent at the company store.

After a quick humble breakfast, often little more than biscuits or cornbread the miner would grab his lunch pail, filled with leftovers or lard sandwiches, and head out into the pre-dawn chill.

At the mine entrance, he'd join his crew.

The day's work began with a descent into the earth, sometimes via a rickety elevator or by walking through low cramped tunnels.

The air grew colder, heavier, and more oppressive with every step.

Inside the mines, the work was relentless.

Miners wielded pickaxes, hammers and drills, carving through seams of coal deep within the mountain.

Explosives were sometimes used to blast rock, -[Man][coughing] -but they came with risks.

Cave-ins and deadly coal dust explosions were constant threats.

The air was thick with coal dust, choking lungs and blackening skin.

Miners worked by the likes of their carbide lamps, their faces illuminated in the dim glow, sweat streaking through the coal grime.

They hauled carts of coal to the surface in tunnels so low they couldn't stand upright.

Lunch was eaten on the job, a quick bite in the damp darkness.

There was no room for leisure or rest.

Every hour underground came with the fear of gas leaks, falling rocks or equipment failures.

Miners relied on each other in this perilous environment, forging bonds of camaraderie and trust.

Life in the mines was a stark reality marked by hard labor, peril and sacrifice.

Yet through their toil, these miners laid the foundation for industrial progress.

The coal they unearthed powered the trains, factories and cities that defined an era, though it came at immeasurable human cost.

This was the life of a coal miner in Virginia's Appalachia, a story of grit, hardship and resilience between the weight of the mountains.

♪♪ -Black lung is actually a preventable occupational and environmental illness.

So it's caused by the chronic inhalation of coal and silica dust.

So essentially, what we've found in recent years is that because the large coal seams are gone, so the coal seams that remain are much smaller than the old ones.

So what happens especially if you're underground you're using a continuous mining machine, what it does is you're cutting into not only just coal seams, but rock.

So with the rock, you're also inhaling a lot of silica dust.

So that silica dust actually acts almost like glass in your lungs, right?

So it just deeply embeds that coal dust in your lungs.

And eventually, it's fatal.

It's progressive, so it just gets worse and worse and worse over time, even after you leave the mines.

It's incurable.

So there are some treatments that kind of help with your day-to-day life.

But a lot of folks are just on oxygen for the rest of their lives.

Their day-to-day activities, they can't really do anything anymore.

And then eventually, it kind of shuts down their body where they're just not getting enough oxygen in their body to function.

Folks often talk about mine explosions and the roofs collapsing and things like that.

But one of the biggest dangers is actually coal and silica dust.

So due to that chronic inhalation, every day you're mining that coal and you're breathing that dust, that is one of the biggest health and safety factors still today.

So... recent accounts for the prevalence of black lung in central Appalachia-- so thinking about Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky alone.

For long tenure miners-- in other words, miners who have been working in the field for at least 25 years, over 20% of those miners have been found to have black lung.

But we also think that there's a gross underestimation of how bad black lung really is, simply because miners aren't getting tested, right?

So how many miners are out there with early stages of black lung that we don't even know?

And we really don't have a true count of that.

Black lung used to be thought of as the old miners' disease, right?

But what we're finding these days is that 30 and 40-year-olds are getting black lung and dying at younger and younger ages.

And this is happening now.

-When I was younger, I'd worked around garages and stuff like that.

Pretty much just existed.

I didn't really live because I wasn't making enough money, and more or less existed.

I had a wife and two kids.

Just got tired of starving, I guess you could say, and decided to -- in the area where I'm from, that you either work above ground stripping coal or you go underground to mining coal.

I chose underground, and it was all about the money.

I wanted to provide and do better.

I wanted to give my wife and my kids all that I could give them.

That area we're from, if you ain't in something to do with coal, then you're just barely making it more or less.

My health kind of let me down there after so many years, and I wasn't able to do it no more, but I do miss it.

I really enjoyed mining.

I enjoyed being around the guys I worked with.

I had a lot of good friends.

2014, got diagnosed, but now before that, I'd gotten-- I was carrying a lot of old cough drops and stuff in a Ziploc bag in my pocket.

I got noticing, and my breathing just wasn't what it used to be.

And it seemed like I could eat the cough drops at the time, and it would open me up and help me a lot.

So I was [indistinct] far out of them.

And I guess, in a way, I know that I was getting sick.

I didn't want to admit it because I was going to work 'till I was 100, and I was indestructible.

Like I said, I went out on my own, had some knee surgeries and shoulder surgeries, and developed some blood clots while I was off.

And then also, after surgeries, the doctors would say-- talk to my wife.

She said, "Does he have breathing issues or something?"

She said, "Well, not that I know of, really."

And they said, "Well, we go to take the oxygen off of him.

He wants to fight us."

And he can't get his breathing back to normal on us.

He's got something going on.

And so then I went from there, and I did find out.

Got my answer.

I did have it.

Took a while, though, because everybody-- all the doctors they don't want to say black lung.

They want to call it, "You're overweight, or you're not eating healthy or something."

They always got some kind of excuse.

But finally, I run into the right guy, and he told me he said, "Son, you've got black lung."

And he showed me on the computer what my lungs look like.

You first get that you know it's like, well, you don't know what's going to happen next.

It turns your world upside down you know, because you're used to working every day and making good money, and going places with your family, and all of a sudden, all that comes to a halt.

And believe me, you'll learn to survive on a whole lot less than miners' wages.

You have to, because the government won't pay you that kind of money or nothing.

They don't care to cut you, but they don't want to give you nothing.

-You don't think it's ever going to happen to you, because you're young.

You're in there.

You don't see the dust and what it's actually doing to the lungs.

But once that you get diagnosed, and we see that this only progresses, it doesn't get better.

Just like with my husband, he was diagnosed at 47.

He's 59 now.

I mean, they're already talking to him about a lung transplant.

So this does advance.

And the miners, the one thing I would tell them is to be safe.

And if you can get out, especially with the economy now, and there's more jobs that you can make around the same money or close then I would advise them you know, if you want to live a long life, and you want to see your family, grandkids, great-grandkids, get out.

-[John] I told my wife from the beginning, I don't do this to hurt a company, a coal company.

I was a coal miner, proud of it, loved it, loved coal mining.

I want all coal companies to do good.

But all we're saying is we've got to take care of our men.

We've got to take care of their health.

Dust is hard to deal with.

Dust is... say if I had cleaned my vehicle on the weekend, and this was like Monday, I could go to my vehicle with the windows up there and take my finger across the dash and it was dust.

But it's that fine dust that you don't see suspended in the air and floating around and all.

Dust can get in these little old small cracks like you wouldn't believe.

I mean, that's what's killing us is what we don't see.

That's what's killing us.

-Everybody's for the coal and the coal industry.

But just like I told them, if we don't have the coal miners, we're not going to have either one.

So we have to keep them protected.

-There's black lung, and a little bit later, something called white lung, which is from the rock dust that they had to apply to the coal seam to keep the coal dust down.

Even our miners today fight to get their black lung.

They had to buy their own tools and supplies to work at the mine.

It was a very hard life, and it was very dangerous as well.

You know when they originally opened up here, there weren't any federal laws in place that protected the miners, the safety and health and things like that.

Of course, that didn't come much later until the union was formed.

You know, life expectancy wasn't past 30, really.

Originally it started out as an eight-hour shift.

However back then, they would try to get in here two to four hours prior to their shift starting to try to get all of that prep work done.

Of course, later on, you know, when some of the federal laws had started to come into place, it was an eight-hour shift.

The price of coal had dropped significantly at that time, and it was no longer feasible for them.

I mean basically, the cost of removing the coal was more than what they were receiving for the coal, so.

-[Dr. Aysha] So coal is a fossil fuel.

I actually have a piece of coal right here.

But this is caused by plant remains over years and years, actually millions of years of heat and compression.

It's a form of carbon, and this is highly combustible.

So we use this to fuel coal-fired plants.

And the coal mining process, in the olden days, what folks would do was they would use dynamite and pickaxes, and they would literally crawl under the ground and pick out the coal.

And then in recent years, there are really two forms of coal extraction.

One is underground, where they still go underground, they have these complex structures where they hold up the roof, and they still extract underground.

And they also have what's called surface mining, or strip mining.

And some folks like to also call that mountaintop removal.

So this is a highly controversial practice.

So what they do is they mine from the top down.

They actually blow up the mountain, they push the overburden, what they call the overburden, into the nearby valleys that covers up the water streams, kind of destroys the forest of Appalachia, and they mine from the top down.

So it's kind of like a layer cake.

It's dirt, it's coal.

It's dirt, it's coal.

And like I said it's a highly controversial practice simply because it's much more destructive, right?

Mining from the top down like that.

So when coal mining really got started in the late 1800s, some of the coal companies actually produced coal towns, or company-owned coal towns.

And what would happen, some of the coal companies would go and recruit new immigrants to come to the area, and they would say, "Hey, we'll give you a one-way train ticket to the middle of nowhere in Appalachia, and when you get there, you can have a guaranteed job and guaranteed housing."

And so those who were just coming to the United States, mostly from European countries, they were like, "This is great, right?"

They would take them up on the deal, and they would come to Appalachia, and then when they got there, they were essentially trapped, because it was a one-way ticket in.

And when they started working for these coal company towns, they were actually paid in what's called scrip.

So it's like monopoly money.

So don't be fooled.

You know, a lot of folks think that this was great, this was altruistic, the company's doing everyone a favor.

But come to find out, what really happened was the prices were four to seven times higher there in the company-owned store than they were elsewhere.

And you could sometimes exchange that scrip for a cash value, but it was just a fraction of the cost.

So you were literally trapped by that company living in that company-owned town.

So if you've ever heard those songs that say, "I owe my soul to the company store," that's where that came from.

♪♪ ♪ Some people say a man is made out of mud ♪ ♪ A poor man's made out of muscle and blood ♪ ♪ Muscle and blood and skin and bones ♪ ♪ A mind that's weak and a back that's strong ♪ ♪ You load 16 tons What do you get?

♪ ♪ Another day older and deeper in debt ♪ ♪ Saint Peter don't you call me ♪ ♪ 'cause I can't go ♪ ♪ I owe my soul to the company store ♪ -[Narrator] In the early 20th century, coal miners across Appalachia, including Virginia, faced long hours, dangerous working conditions, and low pay often in company-owned towns where they were paid in scrip instead of cash.

These hardships laid the groundwork for a movement that would change the industry forever.

Unionization didn't come easily.

Coal companies fought fiercely to maintain control, using armed guards, private detectives, and even state militias to break strikes and intimidate workers.

Despite the risks, miners banded together, finding strength in solidarity.

Secret meetings were held in church basements and forced clearings, where organizers rallied workers to fight for fair wages, safer conditions, and the right to collective bargaining.

The struggle reached a boiling point in events like the Battle of Blair Mountain in neighboring West Virginia, where miners clashed with company-backed forces from one of the largest labor uprisings in US history.

In Virginia, miners joined forces with the United Mine Workers of America.

A union that became a powerful advocate for labor rights.

Through persistence and sacrifice, coal miners eventually won significant victories.

Union contracts brought better wages, shorter hours, and improved safety standards shaping the lives of workers and their families for generations to come.

The coal miners' right to unionize wasn't just a battle for better working conditions.

It was a stand for dignity, justice and the right to be heard.

Their legacy continues to inspire workers fighting for their rights today.

The Pocahontas Exhibition Mine in Pocahontas, Virginia is a preserved historic site offering visitors a glimpse into the coal mining heritage of the Appalachian region.

Designated as a national historic landmark, the exhibition mine allows guests to walk through original mine tunnels that date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

-This was a booming town.

At the turn of the century, there was over 5,000 residents living here in this little town, which is kind of hard to imagine now.

And there were so many private businesses as well that opened up due to the coal mining operation here.

Once the coal mining operation shut down, the population decreased significantly, which caused a lot of the little mom and pop businesses to shut down or they packed up and moved to some of the other neighboring towns.

The railroad ceased to come through here at that time, and it just changed a lot of things very quickly.

When the coal mining operation left, the money left as well.

It started out with Southwest Virginia Improvement Company originally but it changed hands numerous times.

It turned into Pocahontas Collaries Company and then Pocahontas Fuel Company.

So it originally opened up in 1892 until 1955, and that's when all mining operations ceased here.

There was thousands employed by Pocahontas Fuel Company.

I can't give you a real accurate number, other than thousands were employed.

By the first year, they had 40,000 tons ready to go out.

But by the time the mine closed, they had shipped out 44 million tons of coal.

It was pretty much shipped out from the ports of Norfolk, Virginia.

Of course this coal was used to help us fight both of our world wars because it's a very clean burning coal.

So our enemy ships couldn't spot our ships due to no black smoke being above ours basically.

But it was shipped everywhere, really.

This is bituminous coal here, but this coal is also used for coking or coke coal basically which means that burns hot enough to melt steel.

So this kind of, this coal also helps spur the industrial revolution.

But then you have anthracite coal, which produces a very black smoke, which is basically what our enemy ships were using.

-A lot of folks just assume that Appalachia and coal miners were overwhelmingly white men.

And that's not necessarily the case.

There have been female coal miners.

In fact, there are some superstitions about women as coal miners that you could have a female on the team because then the mine would collapse and things like that.

Back in the '80s, that was in '70s, that was a big thing.

African Americans were also coal miners.

There were even some enslaved African Americans that were early coal miners.

So there are lots of different folks that have been coal miners over the years.

Coal mining's the epitome of masculine blue collar work, right?

It's dangerous, it's very physical, it's demanding.

The way that coal miners talk about it is almost like how folks in the military talk about that brotherhood or that camaraderie that you have to depend on others to keep you safe and keep you alive.

But it's also that thrill and excitement of you could lose your life, you know.

So it's pretty exciting in that way.

And I think a lot of coal miners are very, they find that enticing, that thrill and that excitement is what brings them back again and again.

But what's happening in Appalachia is that those large coal seams are gone.

We've mined them, we have used them.

They are gone.

They are fossil fuels, we cannot remake them.

They're gone forever, right?

But coal still makes up about 22% of our electricity in the United States.

So that may seem like a lot, but about 10 years ago, it made up over 50% of our electricity.

So in just 10 years, that's a huge decline in the industry production, consumption of coal.

The other thing is that there are a lot of stereotypes about Appalachia, right?

I teach Appalachian studies.

That's one subject that's near and dear to my heart is trying to dispel those stereotypes about Appalachia.

But a lot of folks assume that coal miners are just dumb and ignorant and they're just... they're not really worth people's time or energy to think about protecting them in the workplace and things like that.

But these folks are really some of the most hardworking and intelligent human beings that I've ever encountered.

Coal is seductive, right?

The industry has this fascinating labor history over the last couple of centuries, but coal miners actually make a lot of money, right?

So they're not dirty, poor Appalachians, right?

They actually make a lot of money.

And a couple of years ago, the starting wages, coming out of high school without a college degree, these new miners could make about $60,000 a year.

And so in the middle of rural Appalachia, where there are few occupations and few lucrative occupations, this was a good deal.

And this is how in large part, the industry has been able to sustain itself because people love coal mining.

They're very proud of being coal miners.

And so that piece, I think you know, as we transition away from coal, we have to find some way to preserve that historical significance and that pride.

But that transition away from coal, we can't leave these people.

We can't leave them behind.

We can't just take their coal jobs and expect them to make a living off of retail.

That's impossible, right?

So we have to find a way to revitalize the economies that were coal dependent for so long.

♪♪ -[Narrator voiceover] Nestled in the remote corner of Southwest Virginia, this region captivates with its rugged landscapes, natural wonders, cultural attractions, and outdoor adventures.

Experiences you'll only find in the heart of Appalachia.

Adventure guides available at heartofappalachia.com.