Glamorgan Coal Camp
Glamorgan Mining Camp


Glamorgan

Glamorgan

By Jewell Bradley

From The Heritage of Wise County and The City of Norton - Volume I

 

            About 1898 Rufus A. Ayers and Warren J. Willits, a businessman from Michigan organized the Stone Gap Colliery at Glamorgan. These men built a railroad line from Norton to Glamorgan for the transportation of coal and coke. The name, Glamorgan, was given by David E. Llewellyn, engineer, after his home township, Glamorganshire, Wales. Col. Llewellyn was the first superintendent.

            A post office was established August 23, 1902, with Robert L. Kilgore, son of Judge G. W. Kilgore, as postmaster. Robert Kilgore's wife, was Alice Flanary, daughter of Senator C. F. Flanary.

 

Memories of Glamorgan

 

            Glamorgan was a great place in which to grow up. I heard my older brothers and sisters tell how beautiful it was, to be a mining town. There was a theater, train depot, hotel, and a large company store where you could buy just about anything if you hard the money. The hotel stood near the depot. When business people came to Glamorgan, they stayed at the hotel. The train coming into Glamorgan each day was an event, and people would meet the train to see who was coming in. My grandfather, Jim Arnold, would entertain them with lots of stories. He was a great storyteller. People followed him around just to hear him tell funny stories.

            Different parts of town had different names. There was Sawmill Hollow, Hunk Hill, Happy Hill, Greasy and New Camp. There was The Pike, where the Collins, Tomkos, Congos and DeBonis lived. One very hot day in July, 1930, fire broke out and destroyed 13 houses in this neighborhood. Two other houses were dynamited to prevent the fire from spreading. The fire had started when a window curtain blew against the stove that had a fire in it for heating irons to iron clothes. It was a sad time as there were several families who lost everything. When men came out of the mines, they found that all they had left was the clothes they were wearing. My grandparents, James and Sarah Arnold, lost their home in the fire.

            There was a church which stood near the Wise exit on U. S. 23 and Stevens road. It was built on a solid rock. We had school and church plays there. We all attended Sunday school and church there. The D. P. Davis family lived in Glamorgan and Stevens at that time, and I can almost see D. P. and his father singing "The Old Rugged Cross". Mr. Davis was manager of the company store and D. P. was the bookkeeper in the coal company office. Later, they opened a store on Main Street in Wise.

            We went to school at Glamorgan until we finished the sixth grade.  It was a two-story building near what is now The Cabinet Shop and Cole & Estep, across the street from Barnette's Quick Shop #1. I remember two teachers I had in that school, they were Dolly Wheatley and Gertrude Llewellyn.

            There was a boarding house where several miners stayed when they came to work in the mines. It was called the McClellan Boarding House. I worked there as a young girl, helping cook and fix lunch pails for the miners. I met the man I later married while I was working there. His name was Paul Bradley.

            People came from different parts of the world to work in the mines at Glamorgan. In the early 1900's, immigrants from Austria, Poland, Hungary, Italy and other European countries came to this country and many came to Glamorgan and stayed until they died. Many of their descendants still live in this area.

Glamorgan School Photo
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