Dingess is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Mingo County,

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

, United States. Dingess is northeast of Lenore and west of

Logan Logan may refer to: Places * Mount Logan (disambiguation) Australia * Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly * Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud * Logan City, local gove ...

. Dingess has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with ZIP code 25671. Dingess is widely known for an approximately mile-long tunnel situated on a county road south of town. Originally built by Italian immigrants, for the

Norfolk and Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

, the tunnel opened for rail traffic on September 25, 1892. It has been opened to one-lane vehicular traffic since at least the mid-1900s. Another, much shorter tunnel is located between Dingess and Breeden. Dingess Residence

History

The community was named after William Anderson Dingess, a pioneer settler. As of 1894, Dingess contained two hotels, eight boarding houses, four restaurants, four groceries, four saw mills, and a school with two teachers and about 100 students. 133 coal miners lived in Dingess. The community once garnered a reputation for being a lawless land. In his book ''They’ll Cut Off Your Project'', Huey Perry, wrote “Old-timers there said it was common practice to have a killing once a month. As ‘Uncle’ Jim Marcum described it, 'Why, a colored person couldn’t think about riding through Dingess. They would stop the train, take him off and shoot him, and nobody would say a word. Why, they would even stop the train and take all its cargo. It was a wild country then, and it ain’t much better now.’” From 1900 to 1972, approximately seventeen lawmen were shot to death in the area which stretches fifteen miles along

Twelvepole Creek Twelvepole Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 26, 2011 river located in Wayne County, West Virginia, United States. It is part of the Mississippi River water ...

. In 1901, robbers raided the community, dynamiting a large safe. According to a November 23, 1901, edition of the ''

Bluefield Daily Telegraph The ''Bluefield Daily Telegraph'' is a newspaper based in Bluefield, West Virginia, and also covering surrounding communities in McDowell, Mercer and Monroe counties, West Virginia; and Bland, Buchanan, Giles and Tazewell counties, Virgin ...

'': "Citizens were on the scene almost immediately after the heavy report, and the burglars hadn’t time to gather up their booty as a number of citizens opened fire and probably forty shots were exchanged. The burglars, who secured a lot of valuable jewelry, escaped on a hand car which was recovered later four miles from Dingess, and on which blood spots were plainly visible. Dingess Depot

Education

Dingess Grade School serves the educational needs of the community. The school mascot is a Dragon.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mingo County, West Virginia Unincorporated communities in West Virginia Coal towns in West Virginia