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Logan County is a remote and isolated pocket in the southwest corner of West Virginia, an undulating succession of mountains rounded by eons and carpeted with hardwood forests. Many residents live in trailer parks and frame houses that hug the Guyandotte River system. The people are proud and charitable, rugged and patriotic. "Culturally speaking, Logan Countians will damn sure fight for what they believe in, whether it's fighting the coal companies, the Iraqis or each other," says Logan council member Stan Morgan.
Since 1980, half the county's mining jobs have vanished and 7,000 of its 50,000 residents have moved away, leaving divided families and empty houses. Unemployment is officially 12%, but 25% may be more accurate. In Logan, the county seat, empty storefronts give the town a sorrowful look. Logan High's 1991 valedictorian, Andrea Henry, speaks for many young people: "Everybody is planning on getting out. There's nothing here."
The county is well acquainted with hard times and disaster. In 1921 a dozen or more were killed in the Battle of Blair Mountain when more than 7,000 armed miners who were trying to unionize the coalfields fought with sheriffs and federal troops. In 1960 a mine fire asphyxiated 18 miners, leaving 77 children fatherless. In 1972 a dam constructed of mine refuse burst open; its 25-ft. tidal wave killed 127 people and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes. Yet nothing has been as painful as the slow expiration of the local industry. "Coal made Logan County -- and it broke it," says county historian Bob Spence. "The people feel the rest of the world has now passed them by. It's a tragedy."
Pete Spradlin was four when his father was killed in a local mine at 27. Pete was taken in by his grandfather, whose skull was crushed in a cave-in when Pete was 13. Now, at 44, Spradlin works the same rolling seam of coal -- Chilton, it is called -- that his father and grandfather did. Each morning Spradlin enters the Bantam Mine, crouching to clear the sign that reads WORK SAFE AND ENJOY LIFE. But Spradlin has had his own close calls -- a gashed lip that took 16 stitches, a couple of cracked ribs, a broken finger, two teeth knocked out.
A gentle and reflective man, Spradlin weighed the career risks before taking his place in the coalfields. Now, after two decades of inhaling coal dust, he tries to ignore a nagging cough but privately frets about black lung. Says his wife Ruby: "I think it's probably the most hazardous job a man could have. If he's late for dinner, I wonder what's happened."
Spradlin operates a shuttle car, ferrying four tons of coal from the face of the mine to a conveyor belt. The monotony of the job is numbing. "It's like a yo-yo, all day, back and forth, all day," he says. Sometimes he is two miles within the mountain. Often he kneels in mud and water. He has worked in low- seam coal, a claustrophobic 29 inches from the mine floor to the roof. To eat his dinner, he has had to lie on his back. To relieve himself, he squats in one of the myriad byways. When the day is done, coal dust covers his face and permeates his overalls. Ruby takes a scrub brush to the washer, the dryer and the bathtub, trying to remove the sooty coal.