We Are David, Kentucky. We Survive When All Else Was Destroyed--Capital Colonization

It has been said that we can't go home again. It's seems impossible for those of us whose childhood home has been destroyed. At least, it's not extant in the way we remember. The physical place is there but homes are gone, neighbors are gone, the store, the church, the fountain, the school, the gym--all gone. Our home place died when the coal mines closed and "The Company" decided to pull up stakes. Where do we go? We live in our minds and reminisce with our children about those days in the coal camp, but we cannot go back. I can only show my children and grandchildren the hollows and roads and where things "used to be". My 16 years of life in David, Kentucky exist only in my mind.

My brothers and sisters and my childhood playmates-that I haven't seen in our 50 years-share memories. Each of us having different, but similar variations of the same reality. Children left David after high school and no one ever seemed to come back. The same thing happened to me. College (on a Company scholarship), marriage, no home to go back to.




The descendants of David, Kentucky, loved the amenities offered by PECCO, the great coal company that hired our fathers for the deep mines and provided very desirable amenities for their children. Our fathers didn't work a short time in the mines, they stayed as long as they could in order to provide for their families. My father worked underground for 34 years, I know of a man who worked underground for 50 years, farming days, mining nights. He preserved his home place outside the camp. Other rural natives had a farm to go back to, but no income to speak of. Their children were forced to move into the industrial north to find work. In David, the miners labored, suffered, and died or were also forced to move when the mines shut down. There was nothing glamorous abut our lives, no matter how many luxuries we enjoyed in our "progressive" coal camp. My mind plays with the idea that we had "benevolent benefactors" but, did we?

Another phrase- Capital Colonization, Economic colonization, if you will.-comes to mind. We discussed these theories in an Appalachian Studies graduate class at the University of Kentucky. The way our coal camp was structured fits the model perfectly. The Company offered temporary work to the Middle Creek region, and it kept us fed and clothed for awhile. When coal contracts began to diminish in the post WWII and post Korean War eras, it was neither economically advantageous for Princess Elkhorn to stay in the mining business in David, Kentucky nor to preserve the camp of houses and buildings. The physical camp no longer served their capital venture profit. So, they left. They left the rural natives- who had become reliant on the Company for income- and the deep miners who had come there from other places to be "paid in real money". PECCO left them all out of work. They left the coal camp residents out of a home as well.

All of this toll in human suffering and loss was for the sake of profit-making. Profit making at our expense. In this sense, we were all exploited. Yes, we had a swimming pool, tennis court, gymnasium, and more. Everyday we enjoyed them while the deep miners suffered and many became terminally ill. Mother said it best,"The children have fun, but the parents are trapped". I'm having a difficult time reconciling these two opposing forces. We were pawns in a capital venture.

As someone said long ago, "It was the best of times, It was the worst of times".