Smith Brothers Mining Company,
Williamson, Mingo County, WV, 1971.
82
OnV
i e w
Ma
g a z i n e
.
most of our power plants and
steel mills. The story of its
extraction, and of the people
who live, work, and endure in
West Virginia, Southwestern
Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, has been a source of
fascination bordering on obses-
c om
•
J
u ly
/S
e p t e m b e r
2015
sion for Levy. For four decades,
he has been witness to a dangerous industry where workers operate heavy machinery
in close quarters underground,
extracting ever-increasing tonnage of coal. Over the last two
decades at surface mines, he