[Bespoke Annotated Photograph Album Documenting the Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company's Activities in the Early 20th Century]

[Kanawha County, WV, 1915. [52] leaves, with fifty-eight full-page professionally-produced sepia-toned photographs, each with printed marginal captions, and six informational plates, most backed on linen. Oblong octavo, 5 x 8 inches. Contemporary brown cloth. Front cover lacking, spine and rear cover chipped and worn. Internally clean. Good condition. A fascinating annotated photograph album produced by the Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company, a prominent early-20th-century mining and lumber company, highlighting its officers and the variety of its operations in West Virginia. The album begins with portraits of four of the company's mustachioed owners -- W.L. Connell, J.K. Griffith, Thomas J. Foster, and William Griffith. The preponderance of the album focuses on the company's activities in various locations, showing their Power House, Coal Yard, company store, and more at Mucklow; large barge shipments on the Kanawha River; exterior scenes and shots inside the mine at Upper Town; the Power House and Tipple at Greenbrier; various scenes at Paint Creek, including the Power House, Tipple, interior mine scenes (including "Miners Working in Paint Creek Mine Using Electrically Driven Undercutter"), their mule barn, and Hickory Camp Power House; scenes around their Nuckolls, Greencastle, and Grosstown properties; scenes inside their Foster Mine; and much more.

Other photographs picture the various trees the company turns into lumber, some scenes around the company's Crescent Property lumber yard, and a couple of their new sawmill. The album concludes with a half dozen informational plates (akin to modern-day Power Point slides) providing financial information on coal land values, coal consumption, coal production, and details on anthracite and bituminous productivity. The album presents like a type of promotional brochure, couching the Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company as a vital and dynamic enterprise with numerous opportunities for potential investors. We could locate nothing like it in OCLC; the Hagley Museum holds a 1914 album of fifty photographs comprising an inspection trip to the Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company and Highland Lumber Company, which would be an excellent companion piece to the present album.