King Coal’s Last Reign: How Corporate Greed Keeps Appalachia Underdeveloped
The abandoned coal towns in Matewan, West Virginia are a stark reminder of King Coal’s lasting legacy in Appalachia. Photo courtesy of Russel & Sydney Poore
Full of life, yet utterly stripped of the tools to live—this is the harsh reality of America’s Appalachian region. The decline of the once-powerful Appalachian coal mines has left many of the area’s communities in a cycle of poverty. Last year, the Appalachian Regional Commission invested $68.2M to encourage economic development; yet, Appalachia’s economic failure persists. As the region faces ongoing economic decline, it is clear that coal corporations’ exploitation of Appalachia's natural resources has created an underdeveloped region that prioritizes corporate profits over the needs of locals.
The Ways Coal Companies Impeded Appalachian Lives in the Past
To understand the transformation of Appalachia into an underdeveloped region, one must first examine the roots of its systemic exploitation and economic dependence. Major production of West Virginia's coal mines began in the 1870s, and as coal grew into a major regional economic factor, so did mining operations across Appalachia. Eventually, demand was so high that US Steel’s coal operation became West Virginia’s biggest employer. As the number of miners increased, corporations formed company towns—residential areas near the coal mines where workers lived. These quasi-industrial hubs were built solely around coal extraction and processing, signaling the economic transition of Appalachia from agriculture to mining.
Company towns were not incorporated under the jurisdiction of the state, so corporations themselves organized how the towns were organized and controlled miners' lives. Homes were distributed to miners in an economic and social hierarchy, with managers living in better houses while blue-collar workers faced limitations on their physical mobility, purchasing options, and even their right to remain in their homes. The use of company-issued currency, or scrip, further entangled familial and corporate life, where mining families were pressured into shopping exclusively at coal operator-owned stores and had no elected officials or independent police forces to counteract the corporations’ influence. From its inception, the American coal industry has permeated all facets of Appalachian life, directly limiting the democratic power of the miners.
Although Appalachian coal production has experienced a drastic decline over the past 15 years—dropping 65 percent from 2005-2020—the mines are not gone for good. Coal corporations continue to have a pervasive influence on Appalachian society and people are still suffering as a result. Whether it's the current underdevelopment in education, infrastructure, or renewable energy, it is clear that corporations remain inseparable from the roots of Appalachian failure.
How Coal Companies Are Still Interfering with the Lives of Appalachians Today
Coal corporations strategically exert influence over politicians, which in turn shapes political decisions that perpetuate their dominance. Coal companies often lobby extensively to maintain subsidies, prevent stricter environmental regulations, and block rules regulating wastewater treatment. The coal industry spends millions of dollars annually on political contributions to influence legislation in their favor: it contributed $15.3 million during the 2012 election and has supported Republican candidates in each of the past 13 election cycles. At the state level, one of Appalachia’s major coal and natural resource companies, Arch Coal, heavily lobbies against stricter environmental standards and efforts to limit coal extraction on public lands. Further, these efforts have had their share of success, as Coal lobbying influenced the choice to roll back the 2017 Stream Protection Rule, which protected waterways from mining waste.
Not only are Appalachian politicians influenced by lobbying, but many of them already hold personal interests in coal companies. In West Virginia, these include coal magnate Don Blankenship, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2018, and former Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV), who runs a family-owned coal brokerage company, Enersystems. Despite pursuing careers in public office, both Blankenship and Manchin have openly criticized regulations that could hurt the coal industry. Manchin has also backed measures to extend coal-plant contracts and loosen coal ash regulations to financially benefit his own company. The hypocrisy of these businessmen-politicians perhaps most prominently revealed itself in 2016, when Blankenship was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiracy to willfully violate mine health and safety standards.
Because coal shapes the political agendas of those who run for office, efforts to promote Appalachian development remain bleak. Campaign contributions from these large corporations undermine efforts to develop vital institutions within the region, namely the employment and education sectors. For example, the coal industry in West Virginia continues to get tax cuts while education remains chronically underfunded. The Underfunded Teachers’ Strike of 2018 was a response to this systemic neglect, during which many West Virginia educators, appalled by the state’s ranking of 48th in teacher pay nationally, were compelled to either leave their jobs or leave the state in search of better-paying roles. As a result, the state reported 1,196 teacher vacancies across West Virginia in 2021, with only 23,000 or 5 percent of teaching positions actually filled.
Moreover, the pervasive influence of the coal industry severely restricts the employment options available to many residents. In West Virginia, there is a correlation between high concentrations of county mining employment and county impoverishment. Scholars note that a reason for this could be that employers in counties with high concentrations of mining do not make investments in higher education because they seek a labor force with relatively low formal education skills. This prolonged underinvestment in education has resulted in a workforce that is inept to work outside the mines or blue-collar industry, as three-quarters or 74.9 percent of those employed in the mining industry have only a high school degree or less. Similar to industrial era ‘coal camp schools,’ where education was intentionally limited and focused on mining, underfunded schools in West Virginia today keep students tied to the coal industry by providing an education ranked 46th in the nation, leaving many youth unable to achieve higher-paying jobs.
The influence of the coal industry not only reduces educational investment, but leads to issues in infrastructural development as well. Companies often advocate for mining-friendly infrastructure, but leave communities burdened with abandoned mines and environmental degradation in their wake. Ultimately, these costs shift to tax-payers more broadly, as federal funds must be allocated to safeguard communities from the health risks associated with mountaintop removal. However, these efforts fall short of actually addressing the lasting damage caused by coal mining. For example, coal extraction and transportation continue to damage Appalachian roads and bridges, yet funding challenges to modernize such infrastructure remain unresolved. The environmental impacts of coal are also significant, as trucks going back and forth between mountaintop removal and fracking sites lead to particulate matter pollution: roadways with coal truck traffic exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air quality recommendations by three times. As a result, people who live in these mining communities are at a greater risk for lung cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, and report poorer overall health.
Coal as an Ideology
Though the influence of coal corporations on Appalachian life remains drastic, many rural communities refuse to adequately address the issue. A lot of Appalachians see coal as an economic livelihood that is tied to their cultural identity, developing a strict notion of “coal heritage” that prevents them from shifting to renewable energy sources. Coal heritage, according to Philip Lewin, is a “carefully curated cultural construction that emphasizes selective aspects of Appalachian history, erases those that challenge their domination, and positions them as guardians of regional interest and values.” This enduring notion makes many Appalachians feel that the federal government, “coming from the outside,” cannot ever earn their full trust. Many feel that efforts to regulate the mines are an attempt to erase an Appalachian culture already marginalized in American society. This is one reason that many Appalachians strongly supported Donald Trump, an avid supporter of the coal industry.
The dangers of this mindset are endless. Not only does coal heritage create serious resistance to policies aimed at remedying Appalachian poverty, but it also legitimizes the harms inflicted by the coal industry, in turn, feeding its power. In Southern West Virginia, the coal industry is still thought to be economically viable and safe, with 40 percent of respondents being pro-coal, almost double the national average of 21 percent. It is clear that without a foundational understanding of regional corporate ruin, policies meant to uplift Appalachia will remain superficial and ineffective. Investment in education or development programs that give agency back to the people is what Appalachia truly needs, not lobbyists who only advance short-term capital gain at the expense of long-term community development. Only when community members confront this reality and break free from the clutches of King Coal can Appalachia transform out of its current state and into a region independent of the industry.
Iman Kanooz (CC ‘27) is a staff writer at CPR studying political science & American studies.