"A Guide To Historic Coal Towns of the Big Sandy River Valley" by George D. Torok--Book Review

While the author only refers to this book as "a guide" both in the title and a few times in the text, it is quite a bit more than a simple guide book.  It is a wonderful and useful piece of work, especially for those who are interested in the coal camp towns along the length of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries.  The author even extended himself a bit beyond his stated geographic region and discusses coal camp towns all the way to Bluefield Virginia/West Virginia and to the towns in Harlan County on the  headwaters of the Cumberland River.  I have no idea how George D. Torok latched onto his decision to write about these coal camp towns but I am very glad he did.  Mr. Torok is a native of Buffalo, New York, and teaches history at El Paso Community College.  But his biography on the cover of this book states that he has "published assorted works on Kentucky history".  I had passed through El Paso twice in October of 2017 but did not know of Mr. Torok or this book at that time.  I would have loved to be able to meet him and discuss this book and his extensive research to produce it.

The book is broken into six chapters, documented with an extensive and well researched bibliography, and supplemented with photographs, documents, and other information from both Mr. Torok himself and several historical sources including  the Eastern Regional Coal Archives, Alice Lloyd College, Elkhorn City Railroad Museum, and Pikeville College Special Collections which I have often used myself for other purposes unconnected to the Big Sandy River or coal camp towns.  It is readily apparent to the experienced researcher that Mr. Torok did a massive amount of work to complete this book including extensive travel in the region which is well documented in the large number of photographs which he personally shot.  He is also able to intelligently write about numerous structures, union locals, individuals, and equipment throughout the course of the book.  

If you consider yourself to be an aficionado of coal camp towns, coal mining or UMWA history, or the geography of the border counties along the West Virginia/Kentucky line, you should read this book.  The bibliography alone is worth buying the book for and will lead the avid reader on a long search for the supporting books, movies, interviews, company documents, and other corroborating information.  This is flatly one of the best pieces of research I have ever seen.  Buy it!  Read it!  Learn from it and use it as the basis for several day trips if you love coal camp towns and their history.