Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

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December 29, 2011

Travel guide: Coal country has tourism potential in southern W.Va.

Staff and wire report Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BRAMWELL — Some of the bloodiest and most important moments in the American labor movement happened in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. But most who live beyond its rugged mountains, and even many who live in them, don’t know the stories.

Doug Estepp is trying to change that, one busload of tourists at a time.

Estepp, who studied the conflicts as a student at West Virginia University and graduated with a degree in history, is “electrifying” in his enthusiasm, says Marie Blackwell, head of the Mercer County Convention and Visitors Bureau in Princeton. “His possibilities are endless.”

Two years ago, the visitors’ bureau was in a branding crisis. The area doesn’t have the same outdoor offerings as counties that capitalize on whitewater rafting, scenic gorges and rock climbing. So Blackwell tested a new theme, “Discover America’s Coal Story,” at a convention in Columbus. People snatched up brochures and offered to buy the coal figurines she’d brought along. Blackwell called her staff.

“We’re coal and railroads,” she told them. “That’s what people are after, and that needs to be our branding.”

“It’s not whether you should or should not mine coal,” she says. “We’re sharing the stories of how the people have lived and worked, what their lives have been like.”

Blackwell said Estepp’s Coal Country Tours are bringing more and more visitors into the local area to learn more about Mercer County’s coal heritage.

“This is my first year with Doug, who is based out of Toms Brook, Va., and he runs tours out of this area and Charles Town,” Blackwell said. “He is branching out to other areas as well. He brings groups into the area and he has brought several into Mercer County to historic Bramwell to tell the story of the Coal Barons. He does a lot with the coal story itself and is looking at incorporating the Pocahontas Exhibition Mine into the tours as well this year. We are looking forward to working on this in 2012. It allows us to promote our ‘Discover America’s Coal Story’ and show our coal mining heritage.”

Blackwell said each tour brings about 45 tourists into the area.

“Doug Estepp has been very good for bringing the coaches into this area and he is very interested in the coal and railroad history in this area,” she said. “There are usually about 45 people, a full coach when they come in on each tour. I usually meet them in Bramwell and give them a tour of the area. People love the area and the scenery. They are very interested in the coal history and they really are in awe of Bramwell with the mansions and the hospitality of the people. They talk about that and how pleasant the locals are.”

According to Blackwell, many of those interested in southern West Virginia’s coal story are also interested in the area’s railroad heritage.

“We have also given them the tour of the coal and railroad history in this area,”

 Blackwell said. “He has visited the Princeton Railroad Museum, Bramwell and is familiar with the Bluefield area. We are hoping to expand into a coal and railroad tour in the future. We are really trying to sell this tour. We are going to start meeting with more tour operations in February and March to sell some of these tours to them in upcoming years. We want to plant that seed and give these tour operators new ideas.”

Blackwell said the partnership with Estepp and Coal Country Tours promises to be a considerable boom for tourism in Mercer and surrounding counties.

“This is a great step in the right direction as far as bringing tourists to our area,” Blackwell said. “I feel like we are building a relationship with Doug Estepp and we are hoping to get several coaches into the area during 2012.”

Estepp grew up in a coal mining family in Mingo County but never heard much about the early 20th century “mine wars” as a child.

The term “mine wars” covers many events in the long, violent struggle to unionize: a deadly gunfight on the streets of Matewan; the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War in the woods above Blair; the firing of machine guns from an armor-plated train on striking miners and their families in the Holly Grove tent colony.

Estepp set out this past summer to tell the tales. With no experience in the tour-bus industry, he took 80 people on two inaugural trips to prove that a region perhaps best known for mine disasters could become West Virginia’s next big destination.

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