Black Gold -The Trillion Dollar Coalfield
Coal powered America’s rise to becoming an industrial giant and a world superpower. At the start of the Industrial Revolution coal was more important the U.S. economy than oil is today. Coal is still America’s most abundant energy source and this is one of the most famous coal mining regions in the world. Coal helped make America what it is today but coal has also been at the center of many key controversies in our history. Whether it is the labor conflicts of the last century or the environmental conflicts of this century, the story of coal is filled with drama. In WWI a person was more likely to die in a coal mine than on the front lines of the war. Mining disasters have killed thousands, there have been labor strikes that shook the entire country and people have chained themselves to bulldozers to save a mountain. There is no more interesting and controversial energy source. So come and learn the story of America’s first fuel and see how and where we get it. It’s the black gold that our country was built upon.