The Coal Miners Who Built Underground Cities 2,000 Feet Below the Surface

They built cities underground — miles of tunnels, rail systems, stables, and machine shops — all carved by hand beneath the Appalachian Mountains, and the men who did it were paid by the ton. Between the 1850s and the 1930s, coal miners in the United States dug thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the hills of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Alabama. Some mines reached depths of over 2,000 feet. Some had tunnel networks stretching more than 40 miles. They were built by hand — with picks, shovels, and black powder — by Irish, Welsh, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and Chinese immigrants, by Black workers and convict laborers, by Appalachian farmers whose land had been bought from under them, and by boys as young as 8 years old. In 1907 alone, over 3,200 men were killed in American coal mines. Their names were rarely recorded. This is the story of how they built underground cities beneath the American earth, and what it cost them. If you care about the history that nobody else remembers, subscribe to this channel. We tell the stories of the workers, the machines, and the impossible labor that built this country before anyone thought to write it down. Like this video if it moved you. Leave a comment telling us which part hit the hardest. Share it with someone who respects the people who built things with their hands. #CoalMining #ForgottenHistory #AmericanHistory #CoalMiners #Appalachia #LaborHistory #UndergroundMining #MiningDisaster #Monongah #BlackLung #BreakerBoys #ChildLabor #CompanyTown #IndustrialRevolution #ForgottenLabor