Speak Your Piece: Coal’s Legacy
[imgbelt img=coalwood528.jpg]Coal has left its mark on West Virginia. Its legacy can be seen in the long-abandoned coal camps and the people who still live there.
 and the theatre after that, at the end of 2002. Dan spent the winter restoring it. The Inn opened as the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre in May 2003.</p><p>Squire and Cucumber are two coal mining communities hard to forget with their little houses in disrepair and a narrow road winding up and around the mountain to War. On January 7, 2007, a tunnel collapse at Brooks Run Coal Company killed two coal miners from the town. I saw a man standing by a Jeep near the post office in Squire and further on up the road I passed a truck hauling two muddy ATVs used for four wheeling on the popular Hatfield-McCoy Trail.</p><p><strong>A Trip to Hell</strong></p><p>I wound around the switchback curves topping the mountain. I could see the city of War below. I began the descent. I stopped by Josephine Zando’s home but did not get an answer when I knocked. She lives in the second house her Italian immigrant father built. Julia Zando (deceased), Josephine’s mother, told how her husband worked the mines during the day and when the mountain was blasted he carried or hauled rocks to the side. Later, he used the rocks to build two houses and stone fences. When the first house became too small because of a growing family, he built the second house next door and moved his family there.</p><p>In 2004 Julia Zando told me of her trip from Italy in 1913. She was 9 years old. Her sister and brother came as well. Julia’s parents came to America earlier and left the children behind with their grandmother. Julia was delayed on Ellis Island for ten days and during her stay, one of the most vivid memories she recalled was of the wealthy people who came to the island and tossed coins to the poor immigrants.</p><p>They were put on a train to Washington D.C. where their father met them. Julia wore a locket around her neck with a picture of her father to help her identify her dad. Julia said the ride on the train from Washington D.C. to War was a ride to “hell.” Julia had never seen snow, which was on the ground, and flames were shooting up from the coke ovens. She tells about her wonderful life in War — growing up, getting married, raising a family in War.<div class=)
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