Coke is a fuel made from coal using destructive distillation, in which the coal is heated in special ovens to remove gases, tar, and oils, leaving mostly carbon. Coke is mainly used in blast furnaces to heat iron ore and make it into "pig iron" and steel.

Long ago, people used charcoal to make iron, but when wood became hard to find in Great Britain, Abraham Darby made the first coke in 1711. In the U.S., ironmakers used charcoal until the 1840s and then started switching quickly to coal. By 1869, coke made from bituminous coal became the main fuel for blast furnaces in America.

West Virginia made its first coke in 1843 near the Cheat River. But coke-making didn’t become a big industry there until the late 1880s. Production grew fast and reached a peak in 1910, especially in McDowell, Fayette, Marion, and Preston counties.