The Cursed Appalachian Mining Town

[Music] that's a Creole house and I pick it easy with squirrels used to be I can I thought I could show you a world an old school house got burnt down okay I think right there used to be an old store all right there used to used to be a they used to be off a bar like a house of dinners long it's starting to fall in okay well my friends Robley used to live in it Haggai used to helping chop wood and and I watch them watch them kill to kill a chicken [Music] I mean I think I think soon was over some results oh that's fair it's probably over minds you see a time summers that's around here oh there it is right there it's a elevator for the for the tank mines these right here my young uns right here below and I married 20 years ago that's when I was real young real yo back in high school when I met my first three orphans but I moved away here and went away from here when I was 18 not come back and Here I am again Ivanhoe it's a quiet place it's nice you can ride your bicycle you didn't get no Yahoo but in the earlier days there's a place up here schoolhouse and everybody are skating fights now I'm talking about this fights yet a buddy book it you know anything about curse on Avenue no only about how far was they said some preacher did it or something like that heck if I know so it said a preacher curse or something like that okay early I'm standing at 289 painters who rode and I haven't over jr. the significance of this place is that this is work Reverend Bob Chaffee is reported to it stood and put a curse on Ivanhoe in the late teen eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds I'm not for sure that was a young child and preacher and he was one of the old horseback riding around I come many many years ago the reason he put the curse on Ivanhoe's because it it was a mining town and there was lots of drinking and gambling and houses of ill repute the Bible says that if somebody offends you to take your shoes off and to shake the dust off and when he got to the top of I believe it was Churchill is what I've always been held he took his shoes off and shook the dirt off of them and he said you know he people he said I would never be nothing whether you know you believe in it or not after that happened we lost everything I lost the right query but off the railroads we lost the mines we've also stores we had nothing [Music] about 15 20 years ago they was fired Debra Berg over houses just nobody leaving him a lot of them get burned indistinct hope starting to show well now I mean cinco's that starts out this big and goes this big and up here at this house up here huh scared me I was mowing the yard when I lived apart and there was a hole this big and I stepped on it and the whole minute like this the one house actually got sucked in and say don't think I'm sticking out what was that the roof there were LED mines here the National carbide came in then New Jersey zinc came in to Austin ville and later out they came and started mining on this this side of the river Austin feels on the other side it really s me and Jack rose we're loading on 1200 we're filling the mining cars each car helped got 12 ton there's land and Johnny really look what they call ahead and run really down through the years I guess over a hundred years my people have been in the mines that just ride around here but being they decided they will do a pay cut on the miners and the miners was like you know what they wouldn't have nothing to do with that because that's a dangerous job they were constantly getting hurt you have you know the same chances of getting black lung from zinc and lead as you do from coal so because they wouldn't take a pay cut in the Union wouldn't break you up they decided to flood them it was a sad time because a lot of the guys that I knew and a lot of guys I worked with see they were almost at retirement age and they couldn't get a job people just wouldn't hire them well they never did get a job back to the mines closed down they just had to struggle till they got old enough to daughter Social Security [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] right now it's just working at a garage part-time and just trying to hold on what we got we own this place I mean it's a family area it's a family place and then we took it over and she's cleaning it up can't care of and everything else but hopefully with the year turning around I'll get back to myself back into business and maybe get back up standards we're mountain people and we're Appalachian and we're deep bred into these mountains and we're so afraid that that's why they won't let people come in and help them it's because they're so afraid peoples come in before and they take stuff away you know they brought they brought all these industries into Ivanhoe and the made out and hold a wonderful place and then the same people that brought it in took it back out but I always stay close to your brush on your right inside okay I've got him in I got him in a scope now you make you make sure that you're not shooting towards the highway like the guy with your own attractor I wouldn't want to be shooting that way but this is just a demonstration that deer was there right here afore I was eating the day before Thanksgiving we always kill two of the pigs and our neighbors kills through the pig and a lot of men come down and help us and we'll cut them and we make the bacon the fat back and the ham and stuff and we keep that and we'll have it we'll have the ham and stuff for Christmas and then we'll use the rest of it throughout the year it's much better than store-bought food [Music] I tell people God give us the greatest piece of real estate on earth America and it's something to celebrate I'm a Klansman I'm the Pearl Wizard of the Virginia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan we believe in God we put God first we the Klan lights across to show Jesus is the light of the world we wired the blood drop that's the blood drop Jesus hid on the cross for us that's the blood off it all of our forefathers shedding all the wars that's the bird we spent we wire the blood drop on our road we're Christian organization yeah it was really hard and our parents always told us not to fight so we had a hard time with that because beyond when we were behind her back we did take up for ourselves we didn't take trash off or nobody in so it was hard but it was I think it was to do a lot to the parents because it's like the children they could get along but it's like the parents you know just the way you brought up and the way you're told whenever you're growing up and it's like like us of color it was hard because you didn't have the rights like you have now I just like the mountains I like I like knowing who my neighbor is and I like being able to come and go at night and not necessarily worried about whether or not you're gonna get attacked I just like the small-town life it was a town that was abandoned by the great company by the big companies but we made it anyway because that's what communities do stay together and pull for each other my papa's brother pulled seven years in state penitentiary for attempted murder and my Popeil pulled six years and state penitentiary for cutting the boy and he was younger when he done it but he cut him in out of night but we're not the bad people in the world by no means there's bad people out there but uh it means that she take up for your family like said me you know thank you she well I mean gives you a reputation just like Shane's family - I mean likes everybody everybody from around here hard knocks it's hard to hurt us I can take a whip this book but I think it's more about I'm taking your kids and your diagon mother and father and your grandparents more than anything they don't him about me I can't take it myself so you jump on me go jump on my kid or something or my grandma that's different you know it should be and they give math a bad name some of that crank has helped people I've seen it help people if it's good well they work it helps you work better now honey I'm not saying I'm a cranky and I've done Frank but uh they do it again but still I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a maker of it and I don't know I'm not a drug dealer really I think it's like a medicine she's real tired do you bumper crank and go on it's good to live in this area you have to be a strong person because a weak person will never survive how to live around here because you know you go without so much you have to work there's no slackers in Avenue you cannot slack and survive here and I love them and you know we have a strong backbone because we've been put down so much oh here comes Ivan her trash you know ain't no I'm not trash that's not a part there's not a part of my body my child's not trash Mama's not trash my daddy's not trash and when you talking about I'm home that's he talking about you talking about my blood this is my fourth of July picture from three years ago because I always carried the flag in the parade and um this year I'm going to be riding a lawn mower in the parade but I'm going to do exactly the same outfit and stuff and so the title of this is a minute mom fourth and long and so I wanted to get exactly as close as I could to fat years but they're they're all gonna be in a parade I guess take what she's kind of camera shy I see him he's running off and last year he wrote the full world yeah I worked in again he's right he's uncle Charlie's four-wheeler and burned it up [Music] they don't like everybody for Canada just baby bless that we're having a free country that we can do this make blasts that you're in a country where you can go to church tomorrow morning and it doesn't matter what religion you are be blessed that we have this beautiful place and there's no bombs going off around us and be blessed but this is a friendly community that we try to bond together and we try to have wonderful things [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it means a lot and its really nice to say that it's gonna or my kids [Music] [Applause] whoa sorry we've been taking a poster around have everybody signed its first time my son is Miss Ivano parade in years he's overseas fight for a country and letting us do what we're doing here say everybody say hi congratulations thanks a lot come over say love you [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] winner of the we missed Jubilee pageant is Daisy Connelly her hobbies are cheerleading wrestling he praises dancing and singing our Junior Miss winner is Chloe watts fifth crazy chef the elementary prepares for Brad and Desiree watts and her hobbies are wilting and reading [Applause] [Music] the world doesn't have much peace for us economy's falling apart sickness of every hand there's not much peace in the world today but there is gave me peace that rules our hearts in the midst of it all we were talking this morning about joy and not having joy and times of suffering or times of calamity but you know what we can go through many things and we may not be selling or rejoicing at the time but we have that peace of comes that is rule in our heart that we don't fall apart that we don't just sit down and give up but that peace of God takes us through and it helps us to come out on the other side that every small price of ordering insightful or the peace of the Lord [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Atlantic

Views: 1,132,806

Keywords: appalachia, mountains, ivanhoe, coal, coal mining, fourth of july, 4th of july, america, small town, rural, curse, cursed, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theory, mystery, mysteries, mining town, cursed town

Id: hryVG6V2zsA

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 13 2018