Rum Creek Hollow

Rum Creek Hollow is about 15 miles long, it's off of Rt. 10 and as you travel up the holler the coal camps are as follows: Dabney, Dehue, Hutchinson, Orville, Chambers, Argyle, Yolyn, and Slagle. I was born in Macbeth where the owner of the mines was named Macbeth, and then my father changed jobs after I was born. We moved to Orville and lived there until I was five years old but then my father change jobs again and we moved back to Macbeth but by this time a man with the last name Hutchinson had brought the mines, so that's why the place is known by both names, Macbeth-Hutchinson, however, Macbeth just seems to stick with the old timers. It's on the West Virginia map as Hutchinson.

The Dehue school went from first to eighth grade; after eighth grade everyone had to catch the school bus and go to Logan for high school. First time I ever used a inside bathroom toilet was when I was six years old and at the Dehue school which boasted a boy's bathroom and a girl's bathroom. I don't know if the other schools had inside bathrooms, however, the school at Cham had an outhouse. There were six commodes in a line and one for the teachers with a wall around it for private use. The older girls would slip in and use the private one.  There was no sewage system so the pipes from the bathrooms emptied out into a creek which ran along the school.  If you stood on the creek bed, you could see where it was draining out into the creek.  Dehue school also had drinking fountains>which was new to me, so I was always making an excuse to get a drink.  This one time, I was getting a drink and the principle came down the stairs which was beside the fountain.
                   "Girl! What are you doing out here in the hallway?" He scared me so bad that I stood there and wet on myself.  I don't remember what happen much after that.

The black children that lived up Rum Creek Hollow had to catch a school bus where they had to cross a bridge and go out of the city - we called this section of Logan Black Bottom but its real name was Guyana Dot.  As far as I know all the black children in Logan County went to this school and it's now a collage.

Dehue has nothing on the land now - the approximate one hundred homes, school, soda fountain, cemetery, post office, church, doctor's office, movie house, and club house where they held meetings for the girl and boy scouts - are all gone.

There were also about fifteen homes in Chambers. They had a two-room schoolhouse that went to fourth grade and no indoor plumbing, if you had to go to the bathroom you used an outhouse in all weather. To get a drink of water you had to go outside where there was a pump.  You had to pump up and down before the water would come out, this usually it took two children to get a drink of water, one to pump and one to catch the water with the cup that hung from the pump. Everyone shared the same cup and the same germs. 

Argyle had about seventy-five homes, Hall’s Beer Garden, Lowe’s grocery store/beer garden, a movie house, an ice cream soda fountain, a Company Store with post office - all of which are gone. However a few years ago, a few homes and the church that we went to were still standing.

Yolyn had over a hundred homes, a Company Store with post office, a schoolhouse that went to fifth grade, and movie house all of which is no longer there.

Slagle had a schoolhouse which went to sixth grade, it set up on left hand side at bottom of Lowe's Mountain. There was also a Company Store with post office, a church, and about one hundred homes.

Past Slagle was what we, up Rum Creek hollow, called Lowe’s Mountain. It was called l Lowe’s because the Lowe family is the only ones that lived upon the mountain. The mountain's official name is Kelly Mountain. The coal mines kept the road in good condition for it was a short cut for their coal trucks to get across the mountain leading to the coal mines on Buffalo Creek. You can by-pass a lot of bad mountain roads if you were going to Charleston or Man but most everyone was going into Logan. And hardly anyone ever used Lowe’s Mountain as it was a dirt road and only two cars could pass one another, there were some places you couldn't pass another car. It had a 3,500-foot drop or more over the side if you should go off of the road. After you got to the top of the mountain, you came to Lowe’s cemetery, then as you are going down you come to a fork in the road where left goes to Blair and right goes to Buffalo Creek. This is the mountain that the West Virginia coal mines wars were fought on in 1920-1921. My Grandma Francis told me that the non-union men tried to come over Lowe’s Mountain to get up Rum Creek to the coal mine. She said there were some men killed and the government had to call in the West Virginia National Guards.

There are very few homes up Rum Creek now and only one Huge - a coal washing mine in Hutchinson where all the other mines send their coal to get it washed. It is called Alma Coal Mines, so now I guess the place would be called Alma's.

Bridge to get to Dehue School from Hutchinson.The school bus 
dropped children off here
that they pick up at Argyle past Macbeth-Hutchinson.

                                       

This is the water pump that my cousin saved when 
 they tore down the two room school house.