Kin & Coal

11/01/2026

Before the Rocks Turned Orange | Kin & Coal 🎶
“And the creek wore orange like a bruise…”

The first sound you hear in this video is the creek itself.

I filmed this orange-stained creek during one of our visits to West Virginia.

It's not Deckers Creek, which I recently featured in a post about restoration efforts. This is another West Virginia stream in Preston County.

Before the Rocks Turned Orange tells a larger Appalachian story of streams changed by mining, childhood memories of cleaner waters, and the ongoing efforts to bring life back to damaged waterways.

This 35-second excerpt captures the loss. But the full song doesn't end there. It's also a story of recovery, perseverance, and hope.

🎶 The full song is available now on streaming platforms and will be featured on the upcoming Kin & Coal Album titled What the Land Remembers: Stories from West Virginia.

10/28/2026

Cascade Falls, Deckers Creek

There's something special about an old postcard that lets us glimpse a place as someone saw it generations ago.

This postcard from my personal collection shows Cascade Falls on Deckers Creek, near the old Morgantown & Kingwood Railroad in West Virginia.

Deckers Creek's history is closely tied to the coal mines and railroads that helped shape the region. But mining also left a lasting mark on the watershed. Acid mine drainage from abandoned mines polluted sections of the creek and its tributaries, turning some streambeds rusty orange and damaging aquatic life.

That story is still being written. Through years of reclamation, water treatment, and monitoring, organizations like Friends of Deckers Creek have helped bring life back to waters once severely affected by mine drainage.

And now they're looking for more Citizen Scientist volunteers, especially in the Masontown and Arthurdale areas of Preston County. You can learn more on the Friends of Deckers Creek website: https://deckerscreek.org/citizen-scientist/

If I still lived in the area, I'd volunteer for this in a heartbeat!

If you live in the area, or have friends or family who might be interested, please consider sharing this opportunity. It's a wonderful way to help protect and restore the waterways that are such an important part of our region's history.

10/26/2026

From the Wider Archives 📷

This was coal country at work.

William E. Barrett photographed the Elkins Coal & Coke Company ovens at Bretz, West Virginia in 1974. Machinery above the ovens charged them with coal, while the equipment below pulled the finished coke for loading into a waiting railcar.

Coke, coal heated to remove much of its volatile material, was essential to steelmaking. The Bretz complex contained 140 beehive ovens and was believed to be the country’s last operating works of its kind. The Bretz complex shut down in 1981.

Photograph by William E. Barrett, 1974. Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress, HAER WV-7-4. Public domain.

Did you or someone in your family ever work at the Bretz ovens— or do you know anyone who did?

10/25/2026

Behind every name in a genealogy record is a face and a story waiting to be told. Today, I'm looking at these archival photos from my collection and wondering about the stories they still hold. Which ancestor's photograph is your most cherished, and what does it tell you about your family's journey? ♥️

10/19/2026

When Washday Was a Day’s Work

Before you could just add a laundry pod, push a button and walk away, there was water to carry, water to heat, and a whole lot of wet laundry to wrestle.

Tubs, soap, a washboard, and elbow grease did the washing. Clothes were soaked and scrubbed, rinsed and wrung out. Some whites were boiled. And after all that, everything still had to be hung to dry. It sure does make you appreciate our modern day conveniences.

I took these photos at the Preston County History House in Terra Alta, West Virginia. Take a look at that wooden tub and the separate wringer behind it. Even the equipment meant to make washing easier still called for plenty of muscle!

And that “Receet for Washin Clothes” sign? By the time you reach “scrub porch with hot sopey water,” you’ve earned that cup of tea at the end. 😂

A powered washer was a welcome helper. For rural homes without electric service, there were even gasoline-powered models with little engines! Electric wringer washers eased the work, too, but somebody still had to move the clothes from the wash water through the wringer, into the rinse tubs, and through the wringer again.

It could still take much of the day. And that was before the ironing.

These machines aren’t such distant history, either. Maytag made its last wringer washer in 1983. My Grandma Radabaugh was still using her electric wringer into the 1990s.

Who remembers the washday setup at home or at Grandma’s? The galvanized tubs, the soap, the clothesline — and that warning to keep your fingers and hair away from the wringer? 😊

10/18/2026

Some stories don't end when the war is over.

When I shared *Two Sons From Preston County*, I told the story of my grand-uncles, Herbert Wayne and Clarence Ray Cale, two brothers who left the hills of Preston County to serve in World War II. Neither came home alive.

But there was another story waiting to be told.

Their parents, Otis Elmer Cale and Frances Cordelia "Fannie" Radabaugh Cale, had to endure the unimaginable loss of two sons. Herbert was killed in France in 1944. Clarence died following the fighting on Iwo Jima in 1945.

Years passed before their sons' remains were brought home to Preston County.

And then came another heartbreak. Just months after their boys were returned home, Fannie died, leaving Otis to carry the loss of his two sons and his wife.

*A Father Left Standing* is the next chapter of their family's story.

It is a song about Otis, but it is also a remembrance of Fannie, of the family they built, and of the terrible price that war continued to exact long after the fighting ended.

Because history remembers the fallen. But sometimes we forget the families who were left behind.

🎵 **A Father Left Standing — Kin & Coal**

Read the family history behind the song:
https://kinandcoal.com/2026/07/03/otis-elmer-cale-and-fannie-radabaugh-cale-the-weight-carried-forward/

*Based on family history and historical research. Music and vocals created with AI-assisted tools.*

09/25/2026

Look what “On This Day in Preston County” turned up today. 👀

On September 25, 1784, George Washington visited the future site of Bruceton Mills, then part of Monongalia County, Virginia.

The source for the entry is the West Virginia State Archives.

I added the “On This Day” feature to Preston County Through Time so the timeline can surface these little bits of county history as their dates roll around.

Today was a good one.

If you want to explore the project, just search Preston County Through Time.

09/23/2026

Work Smarter, Not Harder: What Happened When I Asked AI to Help Me Download 392 National Archives Images

There are parts of historical research that require judgment, patience, curiosity, and a willingness to follow a clue down a rabbit hole. And then there are the tedious parts that require clicking “download” 392 times. Those are not the same thing. I’ve been working with old Post Office Department records from the National Archives for my Preston County post office and postmaster index....

There are parts of historical research that require judgment, patience, curiosity, and a willingness to follow a clue down a rabbit hole. And then there are the tedious parts that require clicking …

09/22/2026

On our last trip to Preston County, we stopped at Street’s Store in Masontown and noticed this hanging on the wall.

A vampire snipe.

Now, I ain’t saying vampire snipes are real. I’m just saying Street’s has one hanging on the wall, and I had questions. 😂

Apparently, I cannot simply go into an old country store, buy something, and leave.

Anybody else ever noticed this fellow in the sporting goods section? Or better yet, caught one yourself?

📍 Street’s Store, Masontown, WV