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Pardee
Established in 1907, built during the ensuing years, and named for Calvin Pardee, president of Blackwood Coal and Coke Company, Pardee grew during the peak of the region's coke production. Based on access to a very clean coal seam of over ten feet high, the town became profitable very quickly and grew into a large community. Lying very near the Virginia-Kentucky line, local newspapers projected that the town's success would inevitably push it across the state line and into Letcher County , Kentucky .
Between its establishment and the late 1910s, Pardee was one of the most isolated of the region's coal communities. It lay deep in a hollow several miles off the main road and also some distance from the small logging town at Roaring Fork. During these early years, Roaring Fork handled the mail for Pardee with the town only receiving a post office in 1911. While some towns could question the wisdom of building a town to supply labor and goods, in a place like Pardee, such an arrangement was necessary. The town was equipped with more than a hundred four room, duplex style houses separated by an interior wall and sharing a front porch.
Growing substantially throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Pardee suffered through the Great Depression as did other regional towns, but rebounded during World War II. During the 1960s and 1970s, its slow decline eventually resulted in its abandonment.
Although essentially dead and deserted, the town enjoyed a brief resurgence into the local public memory in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the filming and release of Coal Miner's Daughter . The company store and various street scenes are featured and many local residents acted in specific roles or as extras in the movie. In the years after the movie, the town was completely destroyed and the landscape devoted to mining.
Pardee no longer exists, however its location lies approximately one and a half miles past Dunbar on private commercial property. In the interest of safety, access is restricted by the company, although permission can be obtained to visit the small cemetery on the property.
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This page last updated: April 5, 2005
Maintained by: Dr. Brian D. McKnight
