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Calvin
As early as 1902, Philadelphian Calvin Pardee purchased the land west of Keokee which would become the community of Calvin. However, his purchase did not translate directly into profit mainly because of the absence of a railroad past Crab Orchard. Instead, he held the Calvin property for the future and concentrated his attention on an area closer to the rails between Appalachia and Norton. More than twenty years later, Calvin would be built and become an incredibly successful operation.
In 1924, the Blackwood Coal and Coke Company began construction on the new town five miles west of Keokee, in Lee County . Named Calvin after the Blackwood Company's founder and builder of the coal town of Pardee , Calvin Pardee, the new settlement had the various colliery buildings along with public facilities and 300 modern homes. Expecting more than 1,000 men to work in Blackwood's 6 1/2 foot coal, the company excitedly began construction. Estimating the opening of the mine, purchase of equipment, and building of the town to cost $8.5 million, the company also saw potential production to reach $2.5 million annually.
Seeing the impact of the Stonega Company's model town of Derby just two years before and the incredible potential of the Calvin works, Blackwood provided the most up-to-date living available in the mountains at that time. By 1925, several houses had been built with each having hot and cold running water inside along with electricity and some appliances. The company contracted a single builder for all the houses, but specified that only twenty of the six room structures with baths be built. After a few weeks in the houses, the miners would be able to make suggestions for improvements of the remaining 280. Each house sat on a lot with a yard and the company provided a garden spot for the miners on the outskirts of the town. In all, the town contained the houses, commissary, theater, a church for whites and one for blacks, and two separate schools.
Unfortunately, Blackwood built Calvin at the worst possible time. With only a few prosperous years ahead until the Great Depression nearly crippled the region's coal industry, the town struggled through the late 1920s and 1930s. With the beginning of World War II, however, the industry revived and flourished throughout the decade of the 1940s. In 1954, the Blackwood Company shut down operations at Calvin. When the school closed in late spring, the town effectively closed. For the years that followed, the houses were sold for $50 each providing they were moved off the company's land. The last of the town was demolished during the 1960s.
Today, most of the Calvin site sits on restricted property. A new road through the Shepherd's Hill community cuts through the old town, but little remains outside of the concrete footers on which the houses once sat. Traveling northeast on the new road, drivers can see several of the home sites sitting on a small flat area on the left.
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This page last updated: June 19, 2005
Maintained by: Dr. Brian D. McKnight
