Many of us first heard of Coalwood as the setting for the movie “October Sky” (1999).  The movie was based on Rocket Boys, a memoir by Homer Hickam about his high school years in Coalwood.

In 1957, when Homer was 14, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.  Homer was inspired to learn how to build rockets as he watched Sputnik streak over McDowell County.

“Coalwood, West Virginia, where I grew up, was built for purpose of extracting the millions of tons of rich, bituminous coal that lay beneath it.

My father, Homer Hickam, was the mine superintendent, and our house was situated just a few hundred yards from the mine’s entrance, a vertical shaft eight hundred feet deep.”

From the window of my bedroom, I could see the black steel tower that sat over the shaft and the comings and goings of the men who worked at the mine.”

from Rocket Boys

Homer Hickam, Jr.

Coalwood No. 1 Mine (1950s)

Coalwood today is but a shell of what it once was.  During its heyday in the ‘40s and ‘50s it was a bustling community of over 2,500 residents.  Today, only a few hundred people live there.  Hundreds of houses have been lost as the result of floods.  Many of the public buildings so important to the history of the town sit unused and unmaintained. 

George L. Carter

George L. Carter built the town of Coalwood from the ground up.  He envisioned it as a “company town” in its purest form, where the management of the coal company took care of the needs of all the workers and their families.  While people in some other company towns in Appalachia compared their life to that of indentured servants, the people of Coalwood speak fondly of those days and of their clean, self-sufficient, hardworking town -- a community to be proud of.

Christmas party at the Company Store (1950)

When coal was no longer necessary to run the big steel mills, towns like this all over Appalachia began to die.   There was no alternative plan.   Coalwood’s fate is the story of hundreds of coal camps.  Perhaps it is the story of small towns all across America.   But take a closer look and you might see that this one was pretty special.

Coalwood lives on through the memories of the residents who remain and those who have moved elsewhere.  In this film they tell us their story and say . . . . .

The Coalwood company store in 1928

“Coalwood is a small coal mining community located in the most southern county of West Virginia.  Today, some people would call it a washed up little coal camp, and I suppose it is.  But at one time, Coalwood was one of the most vibrant places in the entire state.  It was an energetic,

bustling community that by

any measure was considered

successful.”

from The Coalwood Misfits

J.R. Hatmaker

Homer and a few of his friends from Big Creek High School taught themselves the science of rocketry.  Throughout their high school years, they built and launched increasingly sophisticated rockets at “Cape Coalwood”, a coal slack dump outside of town.  With the help of the community and inspirational teacher Freida Riley, the “Big Creek Missile Agency” went on to win local, state and national science fairs.

All the rocket boys went on to college and had successful careers, leaving their slowly dying hometown behind.

But the town of Coalwood is far more interesting than just as the “Home of the Rocket Boys”.  Coalwood was once a boom town -- one of the most successful small towns in Appalachia.

My film tells the story of Coalwood - yesterday, today and tomorrow, through the voices of those who have lived there.

Rocket Boys Homer Hickam, O’Dell Carroll, Roy Lee Cooke (1959)

Aerial view (1923)

“Clean” and “happy” are two words I hear over and over when I ask residents of Coalwood to describe their town in the days before the coal mine shut down.  At first, these words didn’t square with my stereotypical image of an Appalachian coal camp.  But the stories these people have told me paint a picture of a model community, one that took pride in itself and was the envy of other small towns in southern West Virginia.

Homer Hickam’s house, service station and coal train.

Welcome to Coalwood!