The Himler Coal Company was a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

mining company established in 1918 by

Hungarian-American Hungarian Americans ( Hungarian: ''amerikai magyarok'') are Americans of Hungarian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that there are approximately 1.396 million Americans of Hungarian descent as of 2018. The total number of people wit ...

immigrant Martin Himler. The company was responsible for the establishment of two

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

s, Himler (now Ajax),

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

and Himlerville (now Beauty),

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. Its finances exhausted, the company was wiped out by flooding in 1928. Himler Coal Company is remembered for its unique organizational structure, believed to be the only coal mining company ever organized on a cooperative basis.

History

Background

On May 7, 1907, the ''S.S. Carpathia'' arrived at

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

carrying among its passengers an impoverished 18-year old

ethnic Jew "Who is a Jew?" ( he, מיהו יהודי ) is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, political, ...

from

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, Martin Himler.Cathy Cassady Corbin
"Saving the Himler House,"
Appalachian History, November 10, 2014. The youth obtained his first job working in the coal mines of Thacker, West Virginia, before taking a similar job as a miner in

Iselin, Pennsylvania Iselin is an unincorporated community in Young Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachia ...

Development

Decline and demise

Legacy

Footnotes

* Eugene S. Bagger
"Himler of Himlerville,"
''Survey Graphic'', vol. 48, no. 5 (April 29, 1922), pp. 146–150, 187. * Doug Cantrell
"Himlerville: Hungarian Cooperative Mining in Kentucky,"
''Filson Club History Quarterly'', vol. 66, no. 4 (October 1992), pp. 513–542. * Doug Cantrell, "Immigrants and Community in Harlan County, 1910–1930," ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'', vol. 86, no. 2 (Spring 1988), pp. 119–141
In JSTOR
* J.R. Hayworth
"Hungarians Successfully Conduct Cooperative Mine in Kentucky, Having Two Million Dollars Invested,"
''Coal Age'' ew York vol. 20, no. 11 (September 15, 1921), pp. 412–414. * Martin County Historical and Genealogical Society, ''A Pictorial History of Martin County, Kentucky.'' Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Company, 2001. * Tom Wallace
"Miners Will Run Own Mine: Experiment of Hungarians at Warfield, KY, Promoted by Gotham Editor,"
''Louisville Courier-Journal'', October 18, 1920, pp. 1, 7. * Margaret Ripley Wolfe, "The Towns of King Coal," ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'', vol. 97, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 189–201
In JSTOR

External links

"Our Town: Himlerville,"
Kentucky Educational Television, March 3, 2015. —Video. * Doug Cantrell

Appalachian History, www.appalachianhistory.net/ September 17, 2015. * Cathy Cassady Corbin

Appalachian History, www.appalachianhistory.net/ November 10, 2014. Mining companies of the United States Hungarian-American history Cooperatives based in Kentucky {{mining-company-stub