The coal machinery at Nuttallburg still stands 85 years after the miners left

It’s deep in the gorge

Nuttallburg sits so far down in West Virginia’s New River Gorge that the forest has nearly swallowed it whole.

But the old coal town is still here, protected by the National Park Service and connected by trails that wind past rusted steel, crumbling stone, and foundations half-buried in leaves.

The agency calls it one of the most complete coal-mining sites left in the country. Tall sandstone cliffs rise above, and the river runs far below.

What you find in between tells an 85-year story.

John Nuttall paid dollars an acre in 1870

An English-born businessman named John Nuttall started buying land here in 1870, picking up acres for a few dollars each. Three years later, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway reached the gorge, and he opened his mine.

For about 85 years, the town shipped prized smokeless coal out by rail. Henry Ford ran the operation in the 1920s before selling out in 1928.

All races worked side by side underground, but above ground, Short Creek divided the town into separate white and Black neighborhoods. Mining ended in 1958.

The Nuttall family handed the site to the National Park Service in 1998.

The coal tipple towers over old railroad tracks

Most visitors reach the coal tipple first. Its rusted steel frame still rises over the spot where railroad tracks once ran along the bottom of the gorge.

Inside, workers sized and sorted coal before dropping it into rail cars waiting below. You can stand right beneath it and look up through the open framework.

The scale of the thing hits you immediately.

It is the first structure you see from the parking area, and it sets the tone for everything deeper in the site.

A giant conveyor climbs the wooded hillside

From the tipple, a long conveyor stretches hundreds of feet up the steep slope toward the mine above. Henry Ford paid $100,000 to install a system designed for gentler coal transport.

Records from e-WV note that his 1923 build was the world’s largest incline tipple of its kind at the time.

You can follow the structure uphill and read interpretive signs along the way, each one paired with historic photos showing the conveyor when it still ran.

The grade is serious, and the forest presses in on both sides.

Stone coke ovens line the walking route

The mine originally had 80 beehive coke ovens. A National Register nomination documented 46 still visible in the surviving bank.

Workers baked coal at high heat inside these brick and stone domes to burn off impurities. What came out was coke, a fuel that burned hotter and was essential for making iron and steel.

You walk right past them on the main route through the site. Trees grow through some of the arched openings now, and moss covers the stonework.

The forest is slowly pulling them back in.

Only two other U.S. sites had coal this clean

Nuttallburg mined the Sewell seam, a layer of coal about three and a half feet thick. It burned nearly smokeless, which made it a clean, high-value fuel.

According to the Park Service, coal this good came from only two other places in the entire country. The mine itself was a drift mine, meaning the entrance sat level with the coal seam on the hillside.

Nuttallburg was the second town in the gorge to ship this smokeless coal, and buyers paid a premium for it.

500 people once lived on this steep slope

The Town Loop trail climbs the hillside past the old school, church, and home sites. At its peak in the 1920s, about 500 people lived here.

Homes sat on stone piers carved into the slope, stacked up the gorge wall one above another. You can still see those piers along the path today.

The town had a company store, churches, schools, and clubs. No wide streets connected anything.

Footpaths and steps linked the houses instead, because the only flat ground belonged to the mine and the railroad.

A quarter-mile spur leads to Seldom Seen

If you take the short spur off the Tipple Trail, you reach a place called Seldom Seen. The name fits.

A cluster of stone building foundations sits further down the river, set apart from the main townsite and quieter for it. The remnants show how far the community once spread along the gorge.

You can walk the quarter mile in about 10 minutes, and the change in atmosphere is immediate. The forest closes in tighter here, and the ruins feel more forgotten.

The mine entrance sits at the top of the climb

The Conveyor Trail zigzags up the steep slope to the mine entrance and headhouse, where coal first started its long trip down to the river.

The climb is real work, but at the top you get a full view of the entire coal operation laid out below you. Tipple, conveyor, ovens, townsite, river.

All of it visible from one spot. The Headhouse Trail gives you another route to the same high point if you want a different path up.

Miners rented four-room houses for a day of wages

Flat land was too valuable for houses. The mine and railroad took every inch along the river, so more than 100 homes climbed the slope above, linked by footpaths instead of roads.

Miners rented simple four-room houses from the company. Monthly rent ran about a day or two of wages, according to the Park Service.

The town ran on the company in every direction: a company store, a powerhouse, schools, churches, and clubhouses.

Interpretive signs and standing foundations help you piece together how tightly this community fit into the gorge.

Sandstone cliffs and whitewater frame the ruins

Massive sandstone cliffs known as the Endless Wall rise above the old townsite. Rock climbers prize these walls, working routes high over what used to be a company town.

Below the ruins, whitewater churns through the gorge. You can hear it from the trails.

The combination of heavy industry and wild river canyon is what gives Nuttallburg its weight.

Rusted steel and crumbling stone sit in the middle of a landscape that looks like it could swallow the whole operation, and it nearly has.

Historic photos bring the coal camp back to life

Interpretive placards are spread throughout the site, each one showing what stood where you’re standing. Photos of the tipple in operation, children at the school, and daily life in the camp line the trails.

Easy pathways make the main townsite simple for families to explore. The Park Service asks visitors to leave every artifact in place, from bolts to bricks.

Everything you see is part of the record. Take your time with the signs.

They turn a walk through the woods into a walk through a century.

Explore Nuttallburg in New River Gorge National Park

You can visit Nuttallburg year-round inside New River Gorge National Park and Preserve near Winona in Fayette County, West Virginia. The park is free.

Getting there means driving Keeneys Creek Road, a narrow, steep, partly gravel route with stretches so tight you pull aside to let other cars pass. Leave the RV behind.

A vault toilet sits at the trailhead, but there is no drinking water.

Three trails cover the site: Tipple Trail at 0.6 miles, Town Loop at 1.3 miles, and Conveyor Trail at 3.0 miles. Active railroad tracks run through the area, so stay alert near the rails.

Check with the National Park Service for current road and site conditions before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• West Virginia’s 180-mile coal trail connects ghost towns to millionaire mansions
• West Virginia’s newest national park has 1,000-foot cliffs and a small town on the edge
• One Amtrak route threads 1,146 miles of raw Appalachia and almost nobody knows it