Arista was an unincorporated community and coal town in Mercer County, West Virginia, four miles north of Matoaka. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arista,_West_Virginia) It was the site of Weyanoke Coal & Coke Company’s Arista mine, owned and operated by the Patterson Family of Dayton, Ohio. The mine opened in 1914. (http://shinbrierwv.com/mcdowell__mercer_counties_coal_disasters)
Arista means “the best” in Italian. By 1927, Arista paid 210 employees, and in 1944 the population was 586. Three hundred of these residents were company employees. (Bluefield Daily Telegraph, July 6, 2003, Arista among Mercer County’s coal communities)
Arista was originally operated by SJ Patterson Pocahontas Company from 1916 to 1922, and later by the Weyanoke Coal Company off and on from 1923 until it ceased production in 1960. It was mined by the C&M Coal Company in the late 1960s. (http://www.coalcampusa.com/sowv/flattop/mercer/mercer.htm)
On March 3, 1923, ten miners died in an explosion that tore through the surface, scattering timbers and huge boulders for several hundred feet, with tongues of flames shooting through the openings in the earth at Arista Mine. It is believed that an overcharge of dynamite, used in blasting, was the probable cause of the disaster. Thirty-eight were entombed with twenty-seven rescued after 10 hours. Twenty-three children were orphaned as a result of this disaster. The following miners lost their lives that day?
James McCleod
James Gordon
Frank Mitchell
George Barnett
M.C. Pace
James Thomas "Tom" Nelson
Andy Semeck
Henry Crotty
Ernest Divins
W.P. Johnson
(http://www.gendisasters.com/west-virginia/6009/arista-wv-weynneke-coal-…) Articles about this explosion appeared nationally.
One article found in a scrapbook described the disaster, “In the spring of 1923, tragedy struck the Mercer County mine at Arista. On March 2, 1923, 10 miners died in an explosion at the Weyanoke Coal and Coke Company mine about 30 miles north of Bluefield. The explosion occurred at about 10 am. In addition to the 10 dead, 27 men were injured in the blast attributed to a build-up of dust.” “Without the aid of gas masks or anything but sheer nerve, parties made up of employees of the Arista Company started back into the dark hole after their fellow workers who might yet have a spark of life left in their bodies.”
Like other coal towns, Arista had a company store and school. Arista school ceased operation with the 1951-1952 school year. Children were transported to nearby Springton School until the mines closed and people moved away.
Arista was at mile post 21.2 on Rt 10 at the foot of Herndon (Arista) Mountain where the N&W tracks used to cross the road. This crossing has been paved over. (https://www.nwhs.org/convention/2013mullens/Princeton_to_Twin_Falls.pdf) The town has since vanished and is returning to nature off of Rt 10 on the way to Mullens, WV. (http://www.coalcampusa.com/sowv/flattop/mercer/mercer.htm)