Narrator: Some company towns were clean and well-maintained, with sturdy houses, paved streets, bowling alleys, and a theater. But many coal towns were cheerless and filthy.

"As you look out of the train window riding through the heart of the Logan County coalfield, you see on either side camp after camp in which the houses are a little more than shacks. Camps look like the temporary quarters of some construction gang at work, yet they are permanent towns." —Winthrop Lane

Narrator: Coal dust spread like a thick, black paste over everything.

Frances Hensley: "One of the greatest enemies women who lived in coal camps had was dirt—that heavy, heavy black of coal dust. And so one of the memories I have of my mother is she was always cleaning. She couldn't keep the outside of the house clean, so the inside of the house—what she could control—had to be spotless. And after all of her children went to bed at night, she would stay up and polish those floors and polish that woodwork every night while she waited for my dad to come home from work."

Narrator: In their backyards, women tended chickens, cows, and pigs. Few families had indoor plumbing. Creeks provided drinking water and sewage disposal.