A summit of entertainment luxury in coalfield towns was reached Christmas Day, 1928, in Welch, when the 1500 seat Pocahontas Theater opened. It had a huge theater organ and was among the first theaters to use indirect lighting in the auditorium. For the next half-century it reigned as "The Showplace of McDowell County" (it shows up in Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys as the place parents from Coalwood deposited kids while doing weekly shopping in Welch.) Fire destroyed this noble edifice in 1978.

The depopulation of the coalfields - McDowell County went from a height of 98,887 in 1950 to 27,329 in 2000, and Logan County went from 77,391 in 1950 to 37,710 in 2000 - did not quench the desire of inhabitants for celebration and entertainment. A play, The Aracoma Story, was first written for Logan's centennial celebration in 1952. It tells a legend of an 18th century Native American princess who lived on an island on the Guyandotte River now inside downtown Logan. The production has been performed steadily since 1976 in Chief Logan State Park.

Beginning in 1979, a group in McDowell County, the McArts Players, began performing plays written by Kimball native Jean Battlo. The plays have included the tale of an Italian family in a coal camp and the saga of UMWA hero, Sheriff Sid Hatfield and his feud with coal company gunmen. Among other endeavors, today's McArts Fine Arts Organization, Inc., puts on the latter work, Terror of the Tug, all summer at a handsome outdoor amphitheater atop one of the ridges outside Welch.

Page 10: Black Coalfield Migration and Exodus