A unique aspect of the history of the region around Logan and Welch is the story of African-Americans who joined European-Americans in opening up the local coalfields. African-Americans helped construct the railroads which penetrated the southern WV mountains. Quite a number of them stayed on to mine coal. Along the new railroads, a trickle of Black families moving to the coalfields from Virginia farmlands in the late 19th century became a flood from the Southern states by the boom times of World War I. In 1940, 13.5% of Logan County's population was Black. McDowell County had become known as the state's "Black County" with a fourth of its population African-American.

The self-reliance required of miners accorded well with the desires of men escaping regimented sharecropping back home. West Virginia had a milder version of Kentucky and Virginia's Jim Crow laws, which meant Blacks in the coalfields could vote. Until the New Deal they were a mainstay of the Republican Party in the state – and were able to create strong community structures beyond the Baptist Church such as newspapers, schools, and civic groups.

In 1923, Black World War I veterans constructed in Kimball, a coal town near Welch, the first, and only, building memorializing African-American participation in a world war. Mechanization of coal mining hit Black miners especially hard after the 1950's. A great coalfield exodus during the second half of the 20th century resulted in a relatively small percentage of African-Americans remaining in Logan and McDowell Counties – 2.5% and 10.9% respectively – to carry on a proud tradition.

Page 11: Logan & Welch Future