Collecting Harlan County, Kentucky, coal company scrip and trying to locate the now almost forgotten coal company locations has proven to be a monumental task. It requires much determination and a willingness to spend many long days searching out leads, many false, finding nothing and having to return home empty-handed. Repeating this ritual over and over again until you finally "luck up" and find a rare token of the coal mining past that had been "just around the corner" makes Harlan scrip collecting a hobby for only a select few. The real satisfaction gained from these hard and frustrating scavenger hunts is the knowledge that you always gain information that may be very valuable later on while attempting to find that special token for your collection. One such search provided an unusual story that merits being retold. It concerns my search for the very elusive Ellis Knob Coal Company scrip.
The Ellis Knob Coal Company mined coal from a 56' seam of coal in the Harlan seam. The coal was mined by approximately one hundred employees. W.F. Hall, an early Harlan Superintendent of the mining operation located at Cawood, Ky.
From the very beginning of my attempt to collect a specimen from each Harlan County coal company that issued scrip, I was told by the veteran scrip collectors and friends living in Harlan County - Paul Whitaker, Howard Short, and Howard "Woody" Christian, now retired from active collecting, that the scrip from the Ellis Know Coal Company would be one of the hardest examples to obtain of all of the Harlan County scrip. They also agreed that the Crummies Creek Coal Company scrip was one of the easiest to obtain. "Woody" said that he only recalled owning one or two Ellis Knob tokens and none were in the collection of Paul or Howard. It is just "scarce as hen's teeth" to find and it didn't take me long to acknowledge that my friends were right in their comments. I did manage to do some old fashioned "horse trading" with a fellow scrip collector in Middlesboro, Crawford Blakeman and obtained a $.10 cent token for my collection. Months later, my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Emory Saylor, provided a $1.00 example. To this date, I have only seen one or two other examples of this ultra rare coal company scrip.
The Ellis Knob Coal Company was located in Cawood, Ky., and began issuing company scrip in 1923 and until they ceased operating in 1926. The company scrip was manufactured of aluminum, one series with a cut out "E" in the center and another with no cut out. A strange characteristic concerning the "E" cut is that the "E" is reversed when looking at the obverse side.
The company store was located on the right side of the Martins Fork River, if one is traveling south on Highway 421 from Harlan, Ky., and was approximately nine miles from the county seat of Harlan. The mine and mining camp were also located on this side of the river. The L&N Railroad, however, ran directly through the mining property. The company tipple had a direct access to the rail lines and supplies were brought to the property, as were passengers. The only other way to bring supplies into the property was by using a low water river ford. A swinging bridge and the railroad trestle provided the only alternative to fording the river if you wanted to walk into the area.
In the days of the early 1920's traveling away from the mining camp was seldom done. Only important business, severe illness or death, or having to relocated to another mining camp made for travel outside one's own camp area. The turbulent days of the "Coal Wars" made it extremely unsafe for the lookout for union organizers and any new face brought instant suspicion and sometimes instant death at the hand of the "company gun thug". If you were a stranger at Ellis Knob, and a lucky one at that, a forced walk through the river was a reduced form of "thug humiliation". A "thump upside the head" was administered at the slightest hesitation to an order from a "gun thug". Any venture outside one's house at night invited trouble.
My old friend, now deceased, Taft Price, told me about living in Cawood and the other coal camps. He said, "It was scary times in the late 1920's and early 1930's and you had better mind your own business, or a company thug or Deputy Sheriff would mind it for you." Taft lived and worked throughout this troublesome period in Harlan County. He was a devout member of the United Mine Workers of America and was a participant of the Battle of Stanfill. He had the Ellis Knob scrip that belonged to my friend "Woody". Taft remembers the camp and spending the scrip from Ellis Knob at the old wooden commissary years ago.
When the Ellis Knob Coal Company closed, the owners of the Crummies Creek Coal Company bought the entire Ellis Knob operation, mining camp, commissary and all. For all practical purposes, the Ellis Knob Coal Company scrip vanished during this transactional period. The Crummies Creek Coal Company operated the Ellis Knob operations, including the company store, under their Cawood No. 1 name until 1931. They also had two other mines and a larger mining camp, complete with a company store, at Crummies, Ky., about the same time they were operating the Ellis Knob operations. Crummies was located approximately one mile south of Cawood, also on Ky. Highway 421 South. The Crummies Creek scrip was also manufactured of aluminum until the final series was introduced in "hard metal". The older aluminum scrip was "called in" as itwas used and the final series replaced both earlier series. When the Crummies Creek Coal Company ceased operation, their company scrip was not destroyed as was the old Ellis Knob. It has since found its way into the hand of today's scrip collectors.
According to Erwin "Chicken" Stanton, my friend and a life long resident of Cawood, Ky., "I knew all about Ellis Knob but never seen any of the scrip. I spent many a dollar of the Crummies Creek scrip and really didn't know that the Ellis Knob scrip was so hard to get until you scrip collectors kept trying to find it. That's all you fellers think about and I can't find one piece of Ellis Knob scrip."
The Ellis Knob Coal Company is gone, becoming part of Harlan's past. Old Taft Price is gone and nothing is left to prove that this part of Harlan County's coal mining past even existed. Without the "old timers" like my friends Taft and "Chicken" Stanton to recall these days, their memories would be lost as well. Taft is not here, but I recall his many stories of that bygone time when coal was "king", "thugs" roamed the coal camps, and the U.M.W.A. fought with the coal barons. The times were hard and the life was simple in the coal fields. I am fortunate to be able to recall his memories, and "Chicken's" also, and pass them on for future generations.