Defining Appalachia from Below-the-Ground Up.

The Archeological Site & Historical documents

• The 2018 excavation targeted the sector of town with the smallest domestic structures. The northwest neighborhood was populated by rectangular 30x12 single stories structures with a rubble, mortar, and tile foundation. Floors were tongue-and-groove slats of pine. Walls were a simple lath and plaster; a thin barrier from the mountain winter. Each house had a chimney, but stoves were furnished by the miners. Our excavation is revealing the everyday object the populated the home of the communities least affluent. Yet, like many war-era families, our excavation is finding a typical assemblage of toys, polychrome dishware, and a handful of luxury items.

environmental damage & recovery in appalachia

• Like many early 20th Century coal operations, the environment around Kempton was severely impacted by combination of land-uses. Thousands of trees were felled for timber supports within the mine, for rail ties, and for lumber to construct the nascent town. Rock and coal refuse from inside the mines were routinely dumped beyond the tipple into the swampy North Branch of the Potomac River. Constantly exposed to water and oxygen, the coal refuse created a harmful spoil leachate, negatively impacting water chemistry and stream health for many miles down river. Deforestation in the watershed compounded the stream pollution problem. Then in 1950 the mine was closed, the area’s population plummeted, yet the pollution problem remained, only now unobserved and more easily forgotten. And it was. For decades the unmitigated coal debris decimated aquatic life at the very headwaters of the “Nation’s River.” And if the story ended there, that would sound like a usual, stereotypical, myopic, and stale Appalachian story, distressed people in a distressed land. But of course it didn’t end there.

• In the mid-1990’s the Bureau of Mines, Abandoned Mine Lands division, undertook a massive reclamation project that removed coal refuse spoil from the North Branch of the Potomac at Kempton. The material was gathered out of the valley bottom and placed high and dry on an adjacent hill, then revegetated with hardy grasses. Once the mine spoil was removed from the floor of the hollow, the river responded and carved new sinuous tracks. The noxious chemical load carried by the stream abated and aquatic species returned. Wetland taxa reestablished above and below the waterline. The problem removed, then life and landscape recovered.

• This is the true story of the Appalachian environment if people want to hear it. It’s a story of resilience and common-sense solutions to complex problems. It is a story of a burden falling from a company onto an environment and a small-community, and the greater regional and state community gathering resources to help manage the load for a brief moment. Once the problems (often created from outside the region) are removed, Appalachia heals itself. It is also a story that urgently needs acted out again. In a hollow north of Kempton—the Laurel Run Watershed— is the location where the vast network of abandoned and flooded mine tunnels carved by the laborers of the past now empties acidic metal-rich mine water into the Potomac River. The volume and the chemistry of the Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is staggering. An estimated billion gallons of acidic water (pH~3.1) flows forth from two exit points: an old air-shaft and a borehole for inserting equipment into the now submerged mine. In the time it took you to read this, several hundred gallons of AMD spewed out of the abandoned mine workings and made aquatic and riparian life all but impossible in the headwaters of the “Nation’s River.” Want to help? Write to your congress person and tell them you’re loosing sleep because if nothing is done to fix AMD in the North Branch TODAY, then these once spirited waters will continue to be inhabited by ghosts and environmental insults forever.

• Find your representative:

  • United States House of Representatives (https://www.house.gov/).

  • Maryland (https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/39fed/06ushse/html/rep.html#rep)

  • West Virginia (https://www.congress.gov/members?q=%7B%22member-state%22%3A%22West+Virginia%22%7D)

Recent Discoveries

• US Army Lapel Pin from the 1940s.

• A Blue and White Toy Spinning Top embossed with “JAPAN”

• Gas-powered washing-machine mount.

• Plastic Chess Pieces.

• High Heel Shoes.

• Green on cream table wear.

• “Original Spit Shine” shoe polish.

• Red Bakelite Plastic toy Jockey & Race Horse

• Steel bed fra

A Boom-and-Bust Reality

General Trend in Population at Kempton

The town of Kempton was cut out of the Appalachian wilderness, flourished and became a vibrant community rich in culture and familial spirit, then rapidly depopulated after the mine closed in April of 1950. Tethered by memories and a strong sense of home, the former citizens of Kempton founded an annual reunion in 1952. Forest has reclaimed many of the houses. The fruit trees and annual flowers planted long ago by people who loved the place still bloom to greet the Spring.