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Coal Towns/Osaka, Virginia
With the success of nearby Stonega, the company began mining new seams of coal on Mudlick Creek by 1902. Throughout that year and into 1903, the town was built, colliery buildings erected, and new mine entrances opened.
From 1902 until 1927, the town grew and operations thrived. Mining, along with 400 coke ovens, made the town boom until World War I. During the 1920s however, Osaka had taken a backseat to the company's more productive mines. During that decade, the number of employees often fluctuated wildly. For example, the years from 1920-1924 saw 577, 295, 180, 416, and 137 employees respectively while numbers at nearby Roda seldom dipped below 700 men.
Like other company towns, Osaka sported the typical facilities. Hundreds of houses, a commissary, church, school, and boarding house, all made the town a thriving part of a burgeoning region. In 1927, the Osaka mines closed forcing those employees to either leave the mines or to transfer to another job. Many of Osaka 's miners went to work at nearby mines including Roda and Stonega.
Although the town remained viable until the 1950s, it generally spent much of that time as a satellite to Roda. Early in that decade however, the mines reopened there, without the coke ovens which had been silent for several years. By 1953, the company started selling the individual houses by the end of the decade, the company only owned the mine and public buildings. In the 1960s, the mining operation was relocated and Osaka was again marginalized.
Today, little of the original town exists. Apart from a few dozen houses, the original superintendent's home still stands on a hilltop. The impressive commissary, built in 1925, stood until demolished in 1999.
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This page last updated: May 31, 2005
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