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(COAL)
An album entitled
The Making of Lynch. Harlan Co., Kentucky, United States Coal, Coke Co.
Incorporated.
With approximately 84 photographs documenting the building of Lynch, including its coal mining
operations, the surrounding landscape, civic buildings, and homes. Silver prints, 6x8 inches
(15.2x20.3 cm.), and the reverse, most mounted recto/verso on black paper pages, many with a date
in the negative and a caption, in ink, on print recto. Oblong 4to, black leatherette with a twin-bolt
binding. 1917-20
[2,000/3,000]
Lynch was plotted in 1917 by the U.S. Coal and Coke Company (a subsidiary of U.S. Steel) as a
company town to house workers from the company’s nearby coal mines. As documented in this
album, by the 1940s, Lynch had a population of more than 10,000 and had such amenities as a
hospital and movie theater. But, the population declined dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s as
mining techniques shifted.Today it has a population of less than 800.
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