All language subtitles for Aer36.est.VirginiaUB

west virginia.

the only state in america carved
out of another by popular vote.

a land of misty
appalachian peaks, small towns,

and a dramatic gorge created

by one of the oldest rivers
in the world.

but it's also a state
that's known great conflict.

it was in west virginia

that a famous raid
in the name of freedom

brought the nation
one step closer to civil war...

and where battles of that war

still fire up passions
on its streets today.

here, ancient rainforests
left behind

deep veins of buried treasure...

that men and machines have been
ripping from the earth

for more than 150 years.

and are now causing
entire mountaintops

to simply disappear.

and where one former miner

struggles to save his family's
land from the same fate.

in west virginia,

three of america's
great mountain ranges converge--

and almost every valley
holds a different surprise.

from a legendary resort

that hid a top government secret
for decades...

to a futuristic facility

where astronomers
are discovering

how the universe
may have been formed,

to a place known
as america's taj mahal.

for the mountaineers
that climb its famous peaks,

to the rafters that ride
the "big five,"

this is almost heaven:
west virginia.

in 1943 a group of officers
from the u.s. army's

elite mountain training group
in colorado

arrived here in west virginia.

they needed a place to train
world war ii soldiers

for their upcoming deployment

to the rugged mountains
of northern italy.

they chose one
of west virginia's

most iconic landscapes:

a series of jagged peaks that
tower 900 feet over the valley--

a place called seneca rocks.

they set about creating

a wilderness assault
training school.

for more than a year

soldiers clambered over
this impressive formation,

practicing how to muffle
the sounds of their hammers,

and to work as a team
to master the rock face,

while communicating
only with hand signals.

some of the men would use
skills learned here

to scale the cliffs
at normandy on d-day.

many of the steel pitons
the soldiers hammered

into the walls of seneca rocks

are still here today,

but to spot them
can require climbing

some of the toughest routes
in the east.

thousands flock here every year,

to slowly ratchet themselves
up to the summit.

but at least 15 climbers
have perished on these peaks

over the last 40 years.

those who make it to the top

embody one of west virginia's
state mottos:

mountaineers are always free.

seneca rocks was named
after the senecas,

a native american tribe
that used this area

as their hunting ground

before european settlers started
pushing them off their land.

west virginia's rugged landscape

makes it stand out
from its neighbors.

it's here where the allegheny,
blue ridge,

and appalachian mountains
all converge

and give west virginia
the highest average elevation

of any state east
of the mississippi.

and that can make for
some pretty unique communities.

at first, the tiny town
of green bank, population 143,

may look like many
west virginia towns:

one main road, a few houses,
and lots of trees.

but there's something else
going on here

that's impossible to see.

when these students

at green bank
elementary-middle school

go home, they won't be allowed

to surf the internet
on a wi-fi connection

or text their friends.

that's because this
21st century technology

is strictly limited here,

thanks to a futuristic facility
that towers over the town:

the robert c. byrd
green bank telescope.

it's as long
as a football field,

and even though it weighs
17 million pounds,

can pivot on command--

which makes it the largest
fully steerable telescope

in the world.

it's part of the national
radio astronomy observatory,

a collection of giant telescopes

that help create images
of outer space

by using faint radio waves
from distant galaxies...

radio waves that are
helping researchers

to unlock the mystery

of how stars and the universe
were formed.

this site was chosen
for the observatory

because the surrounding
allegheny mountains

act like shields,

to keep earth-bound
radio signals,

from television antennas
and radio towers,

from interfering
with the researchers' work.

but even west virginia's
rugged mountains

can't stop all modern
technological signals.

that's why the federal
communications commission

has created a radio-free zone

for 13,000 square miles
around green bank,

a zone the size of massachusetts
and connecticut combined.

today, astronomers
may come to these mountains

to explore outer space,

but in the 1700s
it was european settlers

who flocked here to explore
west virginia itself.

but as these white pioneers
paddled their way

through this mountainous
new land,

they came into conflict
with the native american tribes

that had lived here
for centuries...

conflicts that would soon
end in war

and lead to one infamous murder

that spawned a famous
west virginia legend.

it all started on what's now
the state's border with ohio,

at a site called point pleasant,

where the ohio and kanawha
rivers converge.

long before wagon trains

were crossing the great plains
to the american west,

this was the wild frontier,

where white settlers clashed
with tribes like the shawnee.

violence soon followed.

atrocities were carried out
by both sides,

including kidnappings
and killings.

by 1773 hostilities
had reached a fever pitch.

the next year the governor
of virginia, lord dunmore,

sent two armies, with a total
of 2,500 soldiers,

to subdue the shawnee
and other native tribes.

when one of those armies
arrived here at point pleasant,

it was ambushed
by 1,200 shawnee warriors,

led by their chief,
named cornstalk.

but he and his men
suffered heavy losses

and retreated across the river
to what's now ohio.

soon after, the shawnee were
forced to relinquish their claim

to all of their land
south of the ohio river.

today an obelisk stands
on the site

of the famous battle
of point pleasant

and marks not only
one army's victory,

but also how that battle
cost the shawnee

hundreds of square miles of land

that were then opened up
for settlement.

but despite his tribe's
great loss,

the story of chief cornstalk
wasn't over quite yet.

three years later
the chief returned,

seeking to forge peaceful ties
with the settlers.

in 1777, he arrived
at nearby fort randolph,

to warn the american soldiers
in the fort

that some members of the shawnee
had taken sides with the british

and could pose a threat.

what happened next is re-enacted
here in point pleasant each may,

in a reconstruction
of the original fort.

as the re-enactment begins,
the chief, dressed in red,

arrives to deliver his news.

but his reception
isn't what he expects.

inside, he's taken hostage.

later, outside, a virginia
soldier is killed while hunting.

an angry local mob seeking
revenge rushes into the fort...

and enters the building where
chief cornstalk is being held.

anyone nearby at the time

would have had no doubts
about what happened next.

the shawnee chief's
peaceful mission ends

with his own murder,

at the hands of the settlers
he had come to protect.

one year later, in may 1778,

hundreds of shawnee and other
native american warriors

seeking to avenge
the chief's murder

lay siege to the fort...

starting with
an all-out assault.

some of these re-enactors
are descendants

of the original settlers
and native americans

who fought in the siege.

the battle lasted
less than a week,

and the american soldiers
were able to repel the attack.

but in the end, many believe
that chief cornstalk

had the last word--
from his grave.

the story goes that as the great
shawnee chief lay dying,

he placed a curse on the area--

a curse that some believe led to
a series of mysterious events.

beginning in the 1960s,

residents claimed they'd seen
a winged monster,

an oversized humanoid
with 10-foot-long wings

and fiery eyes,

that they named "the mothman."

and which went on
to become the inspiration

for a 2002 film
starring richard gere

called "the mothman prophecies."

the film is based on events
in 1967

when, just days
before christmas...

a bridge over the ohio river
collapsed at rush hour,

sending 37 vehicles
into the water below

and killing 46 people.

investigators concluded
that a cracked eyebar

caused the bridge to fail.

but at the time,
some locals believed

the curse of chief cornstalk
was to blame.

[native american
singing and drumming]

long before supposed sightings
of the mysterious mothman,

native american tribes
like the shawnee inhabited

what's now west virginia
for hundreds of years.

but this state holds evidence of
even earlier inhabitants, too.

like this giant mound of earth--
in a town called moundsville.

around 200 bc, a people known
as the adena

were living here
in the kanawha river valley.

to create a burial mound they
piled up 60,000 tons of earth,

basket load by basket load,
over a period of 100 years.

today this landmark is known
as the grave creek mound.

it's the largest remaining
burial mound of the adena.

inside, archeologists
discovered burial chambers,

copper jewelry, shell beads,
and even skeletons!

researchers still don't know
why the adena

built a mound this big
here in west virginia.

but there are some people
right here in moundsville

who've had plenty of time
to try and solve that mystery.

that's because many of
the windows in the cellblocks

of west virginia's infamous
state penitentiary

look right out
on the grave creek mound,

and once offered convicts
a perfect vantage point

to contemplate the lives
of these ancient americans.

but doing time in west virginia
hasn't always meant

being locked up in tiny cells
with hardened criminals...

especially if you're america's
homemaking queen.

in 2004, white-collar convict
martha stewart

served five months here at the
alderson federal prison camp.

first opened in 1927, alderson

was the first federal prison
built exclusively for women.

after stewart started
serving her time here,

the media nicknamed
this minimum-security facility

"camp cupcake."

forbes magazine called it

one of america's
ten "cushiest" prisons.

with brick buildings
and green open space,

it looks more like a college
than a prison.

stewart described her stay here
as "horrifying,"

but said she coped by imagining
herself at yale university.

those who come to stay
at alderson federal prison camp

pretty much know
what they're in for.

but not far away lies
a west virginia landmark

that managed to hide a very deep
u.s. government secret

from its guests
for almost half a century.

here in white sulphur springs,
the greenbrier resort

is one of west virginia's
most historic buildings.

founded in 1778,
its high profile guest list

has spanned the history
of the nation--

from andrew jackson
to jessica simpson.

but until the early '90s,

very few of those
who checked in here

knew of the secret
that lay below them.

it was only discovered
by the washington post in 1992,

when it reported
that the u.s. government

had built an enormous bunker
under greenbrier,

starting in the 1950s,

to shelter the u.s. congress
and the president

in the event of a nuclear attack
on washington.

it was a top secret facility
called "project greek island"--

a vast 112,000-square-foot
facility

protected behind 20-ton
steel blast doors.

entrances to the bunker
can still be spotted today

from the air.

inside, visitors can now get
a tour of the facility

that once held
decontamination chambers,

a television studio,
dormitories, and meeting rooms

where the house, senate
and president

could continue to run
the country in the event of war.

the resort was originally
built here

because of the area's
healing sulfur springs

that fed the nearby
greenbrier river...

just part of the nearly 40,000
miles of rivers and streams

that flow that flow through
this appalachian state.

it was one of these waterways

that inspired
a famous american song,

made its singer a star,

and became a much-loved
west virginia anthem.

singer john denver
may be best known

for his rocky mountain high,

but it was a song
about west virginia

that first brought him fame:

the 1971 hit single
"take me home, country roads,"

a song that celebrates the
beauty of this appalachian state

in its opening lines:

"almost heaven,
west virginia,

blue ridge mountains,
shenandoah river."

"take me home" reached number 2
on the billboard charts

and has been practically
a state anthem ever since.

but while "take me home"
caused many to think

of the shenandoah
as a west virginia river,

only a small piece
of this waterway

actually flows
through the state.

and it's not the first river
that comes to mind

for most west virginians.

that honor likely belongs
to the new river,

which cuts a path right through
the appalachian mountains.

today it's the heart of the
new river gorge national river,

part of the national
park service,

and one of west virginia's
natural treasures:

70,000 acres
of protected wilderness

that hug this winding waterway

as it flows north through
the center of the state.

the new river may have been new
to the pioneers who named it,

but geologically
it's believed to be

among the oldest rivers
on earth.

today the rocky cliffs

that the new river sliced
through millions of years ago

tower over this waterway,

offering views that draw more
than a million people each year.

in the 18th century,
the waters of the new river

and its northern neighbor
the gauley

were considered too treacherous
to navigate,

which is why early settlers
walked along the river's banks.

today, thrill seekers ride
their rapids just for fun.

this section of the gauley is
considered a rafter's paradise.

it's home to the "big five"--

five class v rapids that offer
terrifying but thrilling rides.

the deep canyons
and swift-flowing waters

of the gauley and new rivers

have always made it hard going
for travelers heading west.

first, for those crossing
the area on foot,

and later for others
in horse-drawn carriages...

and even cars.

but that all changed in 1977,

thanks to this
west virginia landmark:

the new river gorge bridge.

when construction began,
its designers promised

they would deliver
an engineering marvel.

they knew that stretching
a 1,700-foot-long arch

high over this gorge

was going to be
anything but easy.

engineers first had to string
cables between towers

on each side of the river.

then trolleys running
on the cables

ferried in sections
of the bridge piece by piece.

holding it all up was
a single giant steel arch--

an arch that relied on the walls
of the gorge itself

for its strength.

it took three years to build,

and when it was
finally finished,

west virginia got
the engineering marvel

it had been promised,

and a record that it holds
to this day.

the new river gorge bridge

remains the longest single-arch
steel bridge in north america.

this is thurmond, west virginia.

population: 5.

but it wasn't always like this.

thanks to rich deposits of coal
in the area's mines,

thurmond's banks were once
full of cash,

coal barons walked its streets,

and hotels here
were booked solid

as scrappy miners
and businessmen arrived

to cash in
on the new boom in coal.

and that made also made thurmond

as rough a town
as any in the wild west.

at the time, it was said

that the only difference
between thurmond and hell

is that a river
runs through thurmond.

in those days the only way
to get here was by train,

and it was a town
without streets.

its buildings downtown

faced right out
on to the train tracks--

just as they still do today.

freight trains still ride
these rails

and provide images of what
thurmond might have looked like

more than a century ago,

in an age when railway lines

were the engineering marvels
of the day...

especially here in the mountains
of west virginia.

[train horn blows]

building paths for train tracks
through these hills

required tough machines
and even tougher men--

one of whom has become
a west virginia legend.

when the chesapeake and ohio
railroad

started laying down a new
rail line through west virginia

in the 1870s to carry out
appalachian coal,

the new tracks ran
right into big bend mountain.

800 men were soon deep inside,
chiseling their way

through more than a mile
of rock

and inhaling tiny particles
from clouds of dust

that would end up killing
many of them.

to speed up the work,

the c&o reportedly brought
a new machine

called a steam-powered drill
into the tunnel...

a machine that's tied

to one of west virginia's
great folktales--

the legend of the
steel-driving man, john henry.

the story goes that henry,
an african american hammer man,

claimed that he alone
could break rock

faster than the c&o's new drill.

pitting himself against
this then-new technology,

henry hammered his way
through the mountain

and succeeded in beating
the drill--

but collapsed and died almost
as soon as he was finished.

no one even knows if john henry
actually existed,

but he lives on as
a west virginia folk hero...

and one that country singer
johnny cash famously sang about

in his much loved version

of "the legend
of john henry's hammer."

"john henry said to his captain,
a man ain't nothin' but a man,'

cash sang.

"but if you bring
that steam drill round,

i'll beat it fair and honest,

i'll die with my hammer
in my hand."

today the railroad
is still the heart

of west virginia's economy.

trains still crisscross
this state,

hauling coal just as they have
for more than a century.

but these days another source of
energy is transforming the land,

just like the railways once did.

but this time,
it's crossing over,

not through, the mountains.

building a new
natural gas pipeline

across a mountainous state
like west virginia

is a giant logistical challenge.

pipeline companies
have to negotiate deals

with land owners,

cut down trees, dig trench,
lay in miles of pipe--

piece by piece--

and then cover it all up again,

and make it look
as if nothing is there.

laying new pipeline can cost
hundreds of millions of dollars,

but it's an investment
that pays off.

that's because
west virginia sits atop

one of the largest natural gas
deposits in the world--

the marcellus shale formation,

that runs for nearly 600 miles
under new york,

pennsylvania, ohio,
and nearly all of west virginia.

after energy companies
dig test wells

and locate concentrations
of gas...

they build drilling pads
like this one.

and then pump water, sand,
and chemicals into the earth

with enough force to crack open
the shale deep below

and release the natural gas,

which is then sucked out
into the pipeline.

it's a controversial process
known as hydraulic fracturing,

or "fracking."

environmentalists claim

that fracking chemicals
pollute the ground water

and are harming nearby rivers
and streams.

but energy companies
refute the claims,

and meanwhile
the drilling continues.

over the last 10 years,
hundreds of these shale wells

have sprung up
across west virginia.

and natural gas drilling

has made many landowners
here rich...

even ones that already have
a palace of gold.

this is not your typical
west virginia mountaintop.

it's a place that's been called
america's taj mahal,

a permanent home for a group
of spiritual devotees

that many of us think of
as wanderers.

this is new vrindaban, named
after a holy city in india,

and the home of the largest
hare krishna community

in america.

when they're not standing
on street corners,

singing in saffron robes,

some followers
of this religious group

come here to new vrindaban.

it was completed in 1979
as a shrine

to the late founder
of the hare krishna movement,

a man called srila prabhupada.

unpaid devotees
built this palace

on top of an old garbage dump

and claimed they developed
their building skills

by using their krishna
consciousness.

its dome is covered
with 22-karat gold leaf.

inside, its floors and walls

are made of dozens of different
kinds of marble

from 17 countries.

but controversy plagued
new vrindaban from the start.

in the 1990s, its leader,
a new york state native

who went by the name
of swami bhaktipada,

was sentenced to 12 years
in jail for racketeering--

charges that centered around
his selling of fake souvenirs

of snoopy and other
cartoon characters...

and accusations that he engaged
his followers

to murder two other
hare krishna devotees.

but these days this hare krishna
community is striking it rich

from a boom that lies
right under their dancing feet.

new vrindaban sold
the natural gas rights

to its 4,000 acres
for $10 million--

money it says will go to
refurbishing its palace of gold.

west virginia
may not be well known

for this hilltop palace...

but it is often remembered

for the cascading waters
of its blackwater falls,

the jagged peaks
of its seneca rocks,

and for the hundreds of hills
and hollows

that are home to most
west virginians today.

but 150 years ago,
these iconic landmarks,

and the people that lived here,

were still part
of the commonwealth of virginia.

west virginia was not yet
a separate state.

when it comes to the story

of why and how the people
of this mountainous region

broke away to create
their own independent state,

there's no greater catalyst
than the civil war--

a war that many say
almost got its start

right here in west virginia,

on the state's northeast border
with maryland.

in 1794,
president george washington

chose harpers ferry
as the site for a new armory

that would also manufacture arms
and munitions for the u.s. army.

he knew that
the shenandoah river's currents

could power the mills necessary
to make weapons.

the remains of those mills

still line the river
just below this historic town.

but as the civil war
edged closer in the mid 1800s,

harpers ferry proved
that it might not be

the safest place
for a u.s. armory.

and the first threat didn't come
from confederate troops.

it came as a surprise ambush

from a now legendary
abolitionist--

a man some say was america's
very first terrorist.

on the night
of october 16, 1859,

a white man named john brown

and 18 of his
anti-slavery supporters

approached harpers ferry
from maryland to the northeast

and captured the town's bridges.

their mission was to launch
an assault on the u.s. armory,

steal a cache of weapons, and
use them to arm runaway slaves--

so they could launch their own
attacks on slave owners

and foment a rebellion.

when brown and his men
arrived in harpers ferry,

they were all armed
and ready to die

for their abolitionist cause.

they quickly stormed the armory
and started taking hostages,

but almost immediately the plan
started to go terribly wrong.

a passenger train happened
to pull in to harpers ferry,

and brown's men stopped it,

but then decided
to allow it to continue on.

when the train later arrived
in baltimore,

passengers alerted authorities

that harpers ferry
was under attack.

by then, brown had moved
his hostages here

to this brick building:
the armory's fire engine house.

the next morning, as the sun
rose over harpers ferry,

townspeople and local militia
began firing on brown's men.

four of them tried to escape
by swimming across the rivers,

but they were shot dead
in the water.

and the worst was yet to come.

about 24 hours
after the siege began,

90 u.s. marines arrived
from washington by train.

under the command
of colonel robert e. lee,

the marines stormed
the engine house,

freed the hostages, and captured
brown and his men.

when it was over,

john brown's raid
on harpers ferry cost 17 lives,

including 10 of brown's men,
several townspeople

and the mayor of harpers ferry.

john brown was convicted of
treason and sentenced to death.

but his anti-slavery speeches
during the trial

inspired many across the country

to sympathize
with the abolitionist cause,

which helped spur the nation
closer to civil war.

after the war broke out,

battles were fought right here
in west virginia's streets--

and the town of lewisburg
soon became a flashpoint.

today, re-enactors depict
a battle that happened here

150 years ago, on may 23, 1862.

at the time, lewisburg
was under northern control--

when confederate forces arrived,
armed with artillery

and began firing
on a nearby union camp.

the battle that followed pitted
2,200 confederate troops

against a much smaller
union force of 1,600.

but despite the odds,
the union soldiers succeeded

in capturing
the confederate artillery.

historians estimate that
up to 80 confederate soldiers

died in the battle,
which lasted just an hour.

the victorious union side
lost 13 men.

but while many
in northwest virginia

remained divided over the war,

by 1861 it was clear

that most preferred independence
from the rest of virginia.

and if west virginia
has a birthplace, it's here,

in the northern city
of wheeling,

right on the ohio border.

the building
in which political leaders

drafted west virginia's
new constitution

still stands downtown.

at the time it was called
the wheeling custom house,

but today it's known
as independence hall.

over the next two years,

delegates from counties
across northwest virginia

met here to hammer out
the boundaries for a new state--

and a constitution
that would include

the gradual emancipation
of slaves.

by march 1863,
residents overwhelmingly voted

in favor of the state's
new constitution.

in april, president
abraham lincoln declared

that west virginia statehood
had been approved.

and finally, on june 20, 1863,

a newly elected governor
named arthur i. boreman

proudly stood before
the county delegates

and announced the birth
of america's 35th state.

the new state's border
was determined

by the counties that had voted
to be free.

years in the making,
west virginia had become

the only state in the nation

to be carved out of another
by popular vote.

wheeling, the west virginia
state capital,

thrived after the war.

iron and steel mills sprang up
along its riverbanks,

turning out a product
that was much needed

by those rebuilding
after the war: nails.

in fact, wheeling's factories
turned out so many nails,

it was called
the nail capital of the world.

by the turn of the century

wheeling had become the richest
city per capita in america.

chances are many here celebrated
their good fortunes

by lighting up cigars.

that's because the city was home

to america's oldest
cigar manufacturer,

the marsh wheeling company,
which dates back to 1840...

when it began making
special cigars called stogies,

which are longer and thinner
than regular cigars.

stogies were
the preferred cigars

of covered wagon drivers
in the 19th century,

wagons called conestogas,

which is where stogies
got their name.

in 1870 wheeling lost its title
as the state capital

when legislators voted
to relocate

to a much smaller town
in the south called charleston,

whose population at the time
was just 3,000.

today it's the state's
biggest city,

home to 50,000 people

and west virginia's
beautiful state house.

but charleston hasn't always had
an easy ride.

between 1807 and 1885

the capital was moved
back and forth

between wheeling and charleston
three times

thanks to political tensions

that continued to simmer
after the civil war.

as the sun sets,
the new capitol's gold dome

sparkles on
charleston's skyline,

thanks to its 23-and-a-half
karat gold leaf.

but west virginia's story
has little to do with gold...

and a lot to do
with an ancient black rock

that powers not just
west virginia,

but much of america...

and has caused hundreds
of mountains to disappear.

when the lights come on
in charleston, west virginia,

it's a good bet
that their bulbs are powered

by west virginia coal.

just as houses, factories,
airports and state capitols are

all across the country.

americans still get almost 50%
of their energy from coal.

and a lot of that coal
comes from west virginia,

which has the second biggest
coal reserves in the u.s.,

thanks to some
pretty fascinating

ancient geological history.

hundreds of millions
of years ago,

the land that's now
west virginia

was actually located
near the equator

and covered by
tropical rainforests--

plants that decayed and became
bogs of carbon-rich peat.

over time, that plant material
was compressed by sand and clay

and transformed into coal.

by the time the north american
continent had been formed,

the land that would become
west virginia

was lined with deep veins of
this carbon-rich fossil fuel--

fuel that people have been
digging out of the ground here

for hundreds of years.

in fact, west virginia
has so much coal

that there's now active mining
in 43 of its 55 counties.

the coal industry is also
the state's biggest employer,

providing
more than 22,000 jobs...

that offer salaries
of about $70,000 a year,

more than three times
the average income in the state.

thousands of miners
across west virginia

have been mining these hills
for generations.

but many argue that the story
of west virginia coal

isn't as clean
as many coal companies

would like them to believe.

most big mining companies

ship the coal dug
by west virginia miners--

and the profits--
out of the state.

miners have been fighting
for a fair shake

ever since they first descended
into the mines.

that's because
it can be a deadly job.

since 1883, 21,000 miners have
died while working in the mines.

and even more from black lung,
a slow disease brought on

by tiny coal particles
that lodge in their lungs.

others from disasters
that struck without warning,

sometimes on
an unimaginable scale.

that's what happened
in one west virginia town

just over a century ago.

this is the town of monongah.

it lies in a coal-rich valley

just south
of the pennsylvania border,

on the west fork river.

it's also the site of the worst
mining disaster in u.s. history.

today there's just one active
coal mine outside monongah.

but just over a century ago,
mines surrounded this town,

worked by more
than a thousand men,

many who'd come from europe

with the promise of steady work
and good pay.

but that promise was shattered
mid-morning on december 6, 1907,

when an explosion tore through
two mines at the base of town.

the blast was so powerful

that streetcars were knocked
off their rails

and houses were blown right
across the west fork river.

by the time the smoke cleared
on that cold december day,

362 miners
had lost their lives...

leaving more than a thousand
mothers, wives and children

without husbands, fathers,
and sons.

and by the following summer,

monongah was still grieving
for its loss.

during a church service
in nearby fairmont,

the idea of holding
an annual day

to remember monongah's
lost fathers was born.

this black and white marker

commemorates america's
very first father's day...

64 years before
president richard nixon

made it an officially recognized
holiday in 1972.

for much of the 20th century,
most coal in west virginia

was mined by men
working deep underground.

but by the 1970s,
a new kind of mining

was starting to transform
west virginia...

on a scale that can still be
hard to comprehend--

unless you see it from the air.

at first, coal-rich mingo county

looks like many other forested
areas of the appalachians.

but when the fog clears,
you'll soon discover

that many of the mountains
themselves are gone.

this is the land of
mountaintop removal--

a mining technique so powerful
and efficient

that companies can simply carve
off the tops of entire mountains

to get to the coal buried below.

this mine is one of the biggest
mountaintop mines in the state.

it's called hobet 21.

not long ago this area was
blanketed with trees and hills.

now it's a 12,000-acre dig site.

it can take just a few men--
and a few monster machines--

to destroy an entire
appalachian mountain.

once the trees are clear-cut,

geologists locate
the seams of coal below.

then the company drills holes,

stuffs them
with powerful explosives,

and blows them up
to loosen earth and rock.

next, excavators move in
to rip the mountain apart,

scoop by scoop.

hobet 21 is home to one

of the most famous
mining machines in america,

an infamous dragline excavator
called big john.

it's as tall
as a 20-story building

and can claw out 100 tons
of earth in a single pass--

all with just one worker
at the controls.

big john has been ripping apart
west virginia's hills

since 1983,

and it's still going strong.

but even big john isn't
big enough to do the job alone.

all across this mine, men
and machines are busy at work.

for every ton of coal produced
in a mine like this one,

the company has to remove
16 tons of earth.

the best way to grasp
the scale of this operation

is to watch it from the air.

it looks like a giant sandbox
with enormous motorized toys.

the state of west virginia

has issued hundreds of permits
for mountaintop removal mining,

but there are some restrictions.

here, mine operators

could remove all the earth
around this mountain,

but they were required to leave
the mountaintop intact.

that's because a civil war
cemetery stands on its peak.

it's one of the oddest sites
in the state:

an historic landmark,

left standing high
in a tuft of trees,

while everything around it below
has been completely destroyed.

all this activity
has one singular purpose--

to uncover valuable seams
of coal like this one,

and then dig it out
and ship it to market.

surface mining is much safer
for west virginia's miners,

since they don't have to work
underground

in potentially dangerous
tunnels.

but it comes with
a huge environmental cost.

500 mountains
have already disappeared,

along with the habitats
for hundreds of species.

and lives are impacted, too.

when a mining company
carves off a mountaintop,

it has to put
that earth somewhere,

and so it dumps it
into nearby valleys.

3,200 local streams
have been destroyed...

and entire communities
have been forced to relocate

when the mining companies
buy up the land.

but not everyone
in west virginia

has been willing to sell.

and it took just one man

to bring one of west virginia's
biggest mountaintop mines

to a grinding halt.

it happened here
in pigeon roost hollow,

and is why this house
is still standing.

it's the home of jimmy weekley,
a retired miner,

who battled the coal companies
here for years,

refusing to sell
his piece of the valley

so a company could turn it
into a dump site--

land that's been in weekley's
family since the 1700s.

almost all of weekley's
neighbors

here in this hollow sold out,

and the mining company
finally raised weekley's offer

to $2 million.

but he still turned them down--

a refusal that triggered
a series of lawsuits

and brought the company's
operations to a halt.

weekley once claimed he'd stay
in this house until he dies,

which is why he was once called
"the last man on the mountain."

jimmy weekley's story
is evidence

of the complicated relationships
that west virginians have

with the coal that lies
beneath their feet,

around their houses, and
all across their communities.

it's provided jobs
for generations,

but has also forced many
to suffer,

from black lung, pollution,
and operations

that have destroyed
entire mountains and valleys.

but whatever damage
coal mining has done,

it hasn't put an end

to west virginians' love
of their state,

and the communities
they're proud to call home--

communities like fairmont.

it was here that olympic gymnast
mary lou retton

was born in 1968,

the granddaughter
of a coal miner.

retton left west virginia
in 1982 to train in texas

and chose not to return

after vaulting her way to gold
in the 1984 olympic games,

settling down in houston
instead.

but in 2009, mary lou decided
it was time to come back home

and moved her family
back to fairmont.

"i just love the simplicity
of west virginia life,"

retton said.

and mary lou retton
isn't the first

to feel that way
about west virginia.

a place where towering peaks
beckon hardy mountaineers.

and a fiercely
independent spirit,

forged during a time of war,

is still alive
on its streets today.

and all across the state,

from the tops of its hills
to the bottoms of its hollows,

and on every river in between.