Metz and Mannington

 Leaving Cameron West Virginia, heading east on Route 250, I had a lot on my mind.  I kept the radio off and the CDs in their brown paper bag.  Driving is good for thinking.

Solo road trips are usually good for long deep thinks but driving Route 250 through the West Virginia hills requires a lot of attention.  I paid close attention to rectangular speed limit signs, those diamond-shaped signs with a drawn arrow describing the shape of the curve, and all the warnings about slope.  I’m usually not that cautious, and my caution soaked up more of my brain’s bandwidth than usual.  Thankfully, there was some left.

I began thinking about the Buick.  Between turning it on, twisting a key the old-fashioned way rather than carrying a fob and pressing a button, and twisting the key back to turn it off, I confess to ignoring the Buick’s engine and drive train entirely.  I check the oil when I fill up, and change the oil regularly, but that’s about the extent of it.  But talking with Bob in the café about his cars and extra wear and tear from the hills made me wonder how the Buick was doing.  I tuned in.

The transmission was shifting all the time, gearing down to take the rises, gearing up when it leveled off, back down to help control the speed on steep descents.  I thought of how different that must be from Illinois driving.  If the Buick were a person, it would say “where the hell have you taken me?”

I tried to remember the details of the transmission work I had done before the pandemic.  I’d had an intermittent check engine light I blamed on the gas cap being loose.  But after buying a new gas cap the light still came on.  I asked the guy at my go-to independent garage in Ottawa to plug the computer into the Buick and tell me what it said about that warning.  Turned out to be two faulty speed sensors in the transmission.  I blogged about it.  Tonight, in the hotel I should get out the laptop and reread that blog.  I did remember the guy at the transmission place in Morris, also independent (no warranty but cheap) pointed out the check engine light went off after replacing those sensors.  That was good enough for him. 

I used to notice a lag when putting the Buick in Drive from Reverse, along with a clunk.  It happened often when I backed out of my driveway and headed down the hill.  I knew it couldn’t be good, and I thought it went away after I had that work done in Morris.  But I wasn’t sure.  I have to listen more closely for that clunk, I told myself silently.  See if I still felt that lag.  So many thoughts go through your mind on a road trip.

Then my mind took me to Metz, a town I would come to up the road.  I’d researched the towns on Wikipedia.  There wasn’t much information on Metz, but what was there stuck with me. 

I remembered the town was founded as Bee Hive Station in the early 1800s by Jacob Metz, a German guy who was a beekeeper.  When the train line came through there in the 1850s the railroad approached Jacob to buy land for a right of way they needed at the time.  Jacob told them he wouldn’t sell them the land but would give it to them on the condition they put in a stop, build a station, and name it Metz Crossing.  He figured the stop would be a boon for his honey business.  The railroad took the deal but soon after the word “crossing” was dropped, and the town became known simply as Metz.

And then the train stopped running in 1959, they tore up the tracks in 1975, and in 2011 they closed the Metz Post Office.  It’s been downhill from there.  I took this picture because it best represents Metz today.

For all we know that could have been Jacob’s house.  It appears Metz is now best known as the name of a portal, or access point to the Marion County Mine, formerly Leveridge Number 22 Mine, an underground coal mine.  It used to belong to the Marion County Coal Company, now a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corporation.  That mine produces 6.1 million tons of coal a year.

The sign is at the intersection of Jonny Cake Road and Route 250.  I wanted to drive back on Jonny Cake to the mine entrance but decided to press on.  It was mostly because I liked the name of the road anyway.

I learned later that the Marion County Mine was one of three mines for which the previous corporate owner, CONSOL Energy, agreed to build a combined $200 million wastewater treatment system, and pay the state and federal governments $6 million to settle hundreds of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.  The fines included payment to the W. Va. Division of Natural Resources for damage to Dunkard Creek.

Those violations remained alleged because, under the terms of the settlement, CONSOL Energy denied responsibility for a 2009 toxic bloom that killed countless fish, salamanders, mussels, and other aquatic life in Dunkard Creek, a tributary to the Monongahela River.  Yet they paid the money.  Coal and the mining of it does more than foul the air.   

Metz was a short stop.  There was little to see.  Neither a hive nor a honeybee in sight.  Jacob Metz would hardly recognize the place.

The road was changing.  From Metz, the Buick and I found ourselves following Route 250 between the hills in a small valley formed by Buffalo Creek.  The road flattened out.  Mannington appeared, population 2,063, and with it came a noticeable change, the appearance of national brand businesses, Dairy Queen, CVS, BP, Dollar General, and hallelujah, McDonald's.  If the town of  Cameron could have but one of those businesses, it would be such a boost to their community.  But someone somewhere has run the numbers and it is not in the cards.  I kept going.

 As the Buick and I approached Farmington this sign appeared on the outskirts of town. 

Such a big national figure from such a small town.  I thought Farmington was bigger.  Population 369.  Sadly, Farmington’s claim to fame is not Joe Manchin but a tragedy that still haunts the community.

On November 20, 1968, at the nearby CONSOL Number 9 mine, an explosion killed 78 miners, one of them Joe Manchin’s uncle.  Annually, Joe Manchin and members of his family attend a memorial service held on that day.  The pain and trauma of the Farmington Mine disaster never go away.  Most families of the victims killed in the Number 9 mine accepted final settlements of $10,000 per miner offered shortly after the explosion by the mine owners.   However, the catastrophe in Farmington led to the 1969 consolidation of safety laws for various industries under a single agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Act Administration, or OSHA. 

The Farmington Disaster is but one of many mine disasters that haunt the people of West Virginia.

On December 6, 1907, the largest West Virginia mine disaster in history, an explosion and collapse in the Monongah mine south of Farmington, took the lives of 362 miners, nearly all of them recent immigrants to the United States. The largest ethnic group among those killed were 171 Italians. The list of coal mine disasters is long.  I describe here only four among scores of catastrophic events. 

On January 2, 2006, an explosion in the Sago mine near Buckhannon, West Virginia trapped thirteen miners for two days.  One survived.

At the Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia a coal dust explosion 1,000 feet underground took the lives of twenty-nine of thirty-one miners on April 5, 2010.

As I learned these facts, my new friends Bob’s words as we were eating banana cream pie rang in my ears. 

“We’ve had to fight for everything we ever got in West Virginia.  We fought to form unions…fought for safety in the mines…fought for years to get Black Lung recognized as a disease.  We’re tired of being ignored.  It’s like we’re being thrown away.” 

From pain comes determination.  I think I get it now. Not only does the coal industry contribute to climate change and pollute rivers and streams, but it also kills the people who work in it.  The experience of working people in West Virginia with the American Dream is hollowed out by death and sadness at the expense of a country hungry for energy at any cost.  Why can’t we find a way to take care of each other in this country?

By the time the Buick and I got to Fairmont, a big town of 18,400 on the Monongahela River, I decided to give the Buick a break and put it on a big multi-lane road with gentle rises and falls, gradual curves, and long straightaways.  I found an entrance to Interstate 79 South and took it, hoping to make it to Beckley, a soft motel mattress, and a good restaurant before it got dark.

I hope I get back to those hills.  Maybe I’ll find another way to get to Fairmont and take Route 250 on up to Cheat Mountain and into Virginia.  I’m sure if I do, I’ll meet more good people along the way and understand them even more.