THE STRIVINGS IN SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA

In southern West Virginia there were at first few schools for Negroes,
inasmuch as the small Negro groups here and there did not warrant the
outlay. What instruction such Negroes received prior to 1888 was
largely private. That year an epoch was marked in the development of
the southern portion of the State by the completion of the main line
of the Norfolk and Western Railroad, opening up one of the largest
coal fields in the United States. As the discontented Negroes of
Virginia and North Carolina were eager for industrial opportunities in
the mining regions of the Appalachian Mountains, these coal fields
attracted them in large numbers. Bluefield, which developed in a few
years from a barren field in 1888 to a town of almost ten thousand by
1900, indicates how rapidly the population there increased. Other
large centers of industry, like Elkhorn, Northfork, Welch, and
Keystone, soon became more than ordinary mining towns.

When these places had worn off the rough edges of frontier settlement
and directed their attention to economic and social welfare, they
naturally clamored for education. The first school for whites was
established in Bluefield in 1889 and one for the Negroes, with Gordon
Madson as teacher, followed in 1890. Prominent among the pioneering
teachers in Bluefield were Mr. A. J. Smith and Mrs. L. O. McGhee, who
began their work in a one-room log building in the suburbs of the
town. About the end of the nineties there were Negro schools in most
of the important mining towns along the Norfolk and Western Railroad
between Bluefield and Williamson.

The Negro school in Bluefield had an interesting history. The school,
of course, was poorly equipped and the teachers were not then
adequately paid, but they continued their work two sessions of five
months each. In the third year the school was moved to another town
called Cooperstown where it was housed in a two-room building more
comfortable than the first structure, but not a modern establishment.
As it was situated in crowded quarters, the children had no
playground. Several years thereafter, the work was continued by Mr.
Patterson and Mrs. E. O. Smith. When, however, a large Negro
population settled in North Bluefield it was necessary to provide
there a two-room building between them. In this school-house taught
Mr. P. J. Carter with an enrolment of about thirty pupils. Not long
thereafter the building in the s