Join fine art photographer Keith Dotson at the abandoned coal mines in the mountains at Lynch, Harlan County, Kentucky
I was born in a neighboring county in eastern Kentucky. My grandfather was a coal miner. My father would probably also have been a coal miner had he not opted for the military instead.
There was a time when coal mining was one of the only options for employment in this mountainous and somewhat isolated part of America.
In this video, we travelled to the city of Lynch, a town built in 1917 by the U.S. Coal and Coke Company — a subsidiary of U.S. Steel — and completely owned by the company until the 1960s when it sold off its assets to local citizens and the city became incorporated.
The coal company owned the houses, the mines, the stores, and even the police force.
Below is a 1945 photograph by Russell Lee of the United Supply Company, the coal company store that offered shopping to miner’s families. Below that is my 2025 photograph of the same building, now abandoned and boarded up.
Lynch has wisely turned the vast ruins of the old mining company buildings into an open air museum, with signs telling some of the story of what happened here. One of the mines, Portal 31, is open as a tourist attraction. The region is rich with natural beauty and history.