Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • A few boxes are left as this family packs to move from their home because of an encroaching mine in their back yard.  The impacts on communities of blowing up mountains and dumping the rubble into streams are profound. It forces residents to contend with contaminated drinking water, increased flooding, dangerous coal slurry impoundments, and higher rates of cancer and other health issues.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023749.jpg
  • A man hoes neat rows of potatoes in the family garden at Mud River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023671.jpg
  • The Miller and Caudill family prepare string beans from the summer garden for canning.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023691.jpg
  • A young girl in braids sits on a swing at the Caudill homestead during a weekend family reunion bringing relatives together.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023750.jpg
  • Caudill family members rest on the front porch and yard when they gather on weekends to work in the garden and maintain their homestead. <br />
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It took several years and a lot of money and determination, but kin of the Caudill family fought to keep their family homestead on Mud River from being taken over by the St. Louis-based Arch Coal Company. Nearly swindled out of their homestead, they battled all the way to the West Virginia Supreme Court where they finally won their case.<br />
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For 100 years, Miller’s wife and family owned the 75-acre tract that includes a farmhouse, built in 1920, several small barns and a garden. John Caudill, a coal miner who was blinded in a mining accident in the 1930s, and his wife, Lydia Caudill, raised 10 children in the home. <br />
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Arch Coal wanted to tear down the family’s ancestral home because it stood in the way of the company’s plans to expand its 12,000-acre Hobet 21 mountaintop removal complex. Hobet 21 produced about 5.2 million tons of coal, making it among the largest surface mines in the state. Mines like Hobet yield one ton of coal for every 16 tons of terrain that is displaced.<br />
Under Hobet’s plans, statements from Arch submitted in court say that “ a valley fill and an impoundment pond would destroy the inundate the farmhouse and outbuilding and bury the immediate surrounding land under the valley fill.” A lower court agreed with the company, but in the end, the family won.<br />
The mining operations have expanded to surround the Caudill property.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996228.jpg
  • Lorene Caudill prepares for their move by taking down family photographs. She and her husband Therman endured eight years of coal dust and foundation-shaking dynamite blasts as Hobet 21, one of the largest surface mines in the state, inched slowly toward them. They put up apples from their last garden and packed their belongings after signing a letter of intent to sell their beloved home to a coal company.<br />
The Caudills, along with other family members, did achieve a small victory by preserving ownership of a nearby ancestral home but only after a long battle—all the way to the West Virginia Supreme Court—with the coal company.  No one lives there now but the extended family gathers on weekends to garden and for dinners at the house, which was completely surrounded by mining. Since then, the house was burned down by arsonists.<br />
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The Caudill house, where they had planned on spending the rest of their lives, is a half-mile down the road from the old homestead. They are some of the last to leave the community. Therman Caudill, a retired schoolteacher said, “It took the coal company 125 years to run the Caudill family out of Mud River, but they finally did it.”
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996259.jpg
  • A mother and daughter and other family members visit at the end of a reunion of the Caudill/Miller family at their homestead in Mud, West Virginia. The family fought Arch Coal Company in court to keep their 26 acres where they plant a garden and spend weekends. The home stood in the way of Hobet 21, a 12,000-acre, mountaintop removal mine. After a long battle in court, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a Lincoln County family was wrongly forced to sell its home to make way for the surface mine. Justices said a lower court was wrong to discount the family’s ‘sentimental or emotional interests’ in the property in favor of the economic concerns of a coal operator.”<br />
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The mining operations expanded to surround the Caudill property.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023715.jpg
  • A woman dusts a portrait of herself as she packs to move. The family was forced to leave because of an encroaching mountaintop removal mine. The mine is now closed but no one lives in the community that was destroyed. Her husband said, "It only took the mining company a hundred years to run out the Caudill family but they finally did it."
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023718.jpg
  • A family works together snapping green beans at the Caudill-Miller family homestead.<br />
It is a summertime ritual for everyone to put up produce from the garden.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023672.jpg
  • Jars of green beans and tomatoes from the Caudill-Miller family garden that will be consumed throughout the year. Canning in mason jars is an annual ritual.
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  • Framed portraits are displayed on the family organ in the living room of the Caudill-Miller homestead.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023693.jpg