The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Tourism in coal country
Digging into culture, ecotourism
PERRY COUNTY, OHIO » Twothirds of Appalachia’s coal industry jobs have disappeared since the 1990s. Now the region is hoping tourism will help rebuild its economy by tapping into history and its rugged natural beauty.
A Shawnee, Ohio, event re-enacted a Prohibition rally outside the reallife former speakeasy. In Corbin, Kentucky, they’re constructing an elk-viewing area on a former mountaintop mine. Virginia’s Crooked Road traces country music history. Ohio’s Winding Road takes visitors back to the birth of the U.S. labor movement.
“We’d like to promote Appalachia as an exotic, interesting place, not the Godforsaken place that we usually get in the national press,” said Todd Christensen, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Foundation.
AUTHENTIC STORIES
For Ohio activist John Winnenberg, the rebirth goes deeper. As eastern Ohio has endured boomand-bust cycles — of timber, coal, clay and, lately, oil-and-gas extraction — residents have internalized a sense of futility and abandonment that’s hard to shake, he says. That mentality could fade if locals succeed in building their own tourism-based economy. “We’ve been owned before,” said Winnenberg, director of The Winding Road initiative centered in historic Shawnee. “We don’t want to be owned again.”
The promise of a new future for coal country is not new. Billions of dollars have been spent closing, reclaiming, reforesting and redeveloping abandoned mine land since the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act passed 40 years ago.
What’s fresh is the new energy among baby boomers and millennials alike, who seem to enjoy the Rust Belt chic of enjoying a drink or overnight stay in a place full of authentic stories built on sweat and strife.
In Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday Creek Coal Co. was among dozens of companies that thrived in eastern Ohio during mining’s heyday, 1850 to 1940. Vestiges comic biopic about disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding is how it juggles the conflicting points-ofview of a handful of people, including Harding (Margot Robbie), her flaky husband Jeff (Sebastian Stan) and her sadistic mother Lavona (Allison Janney). The central event is, of course, the ill-conceived attack on Nancy Kerrigan, who was Harding’s Olympic rival. “I, Tonya” winds up being sympathetic of that era — opera houses, speakeasies, union halls, railroad depots — are being preserved and promoted for tours, lodging and quirky events like the re-enactment of a Prohibition rally.
“It’s not creating tourism just for other people. We’re going for ourselves as well,” said Winnenberg.
ECOTOURISM
The Corbin, Kentuckybased Appalachian Wildlife Foundation is developing an ecology education site on Kentucky’s first mountaintop removal coal mine.
“Capitalizing on the wildlife of the region for conservation, based on our work, turned into a tourist attraction,” said board chairman Frank Allen. to the hard-working Harding who had almost nothing to do with the assault but paid dearly for it nonetheless. Robbie is a major revelation while Janney steals every scene she’s in by somehow managing to endow a monster with flashes of humanity. Now playing in area theaters.
In a year of endless superhero movies, one stood headand-shoulders above the rest. Patty Jenkins (“Monster”) directed this actioner which chronicled the transformation of Princess Diana (Israeli actress Gal Gadot) from a young, compassionate woman living with her all-female family (Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright) on the island of Thermyscira into a ferocious warrior determined to put an end to all wars. Diana bonds with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), saves lives in battle, and lives up
A wildlife center rich with elk, deer, bear and more than 260 species of birds will open in 2019 while mining operations continue nearby. An economic impact study predicts the 19-square-mile tract of former mine land will attract 638,000 annual visitors, generate $124 million in annual spending by its fifth year and create 2,300 jobs.
“The mining has created phenomenal elk habitat. Elk are, by nature, prairie animals, and the grassland habitat that’s created when the coal mines are restored is very conducive to the elk,” Allen said. “It’s kind of the ultimate irony: The ‘evil’ mountaintop removal process and, all of the sudden, it’s created the ideal habitat for wildlife.”
The Monday Creek Restoration Project in New Straitsville, Ohio, gave locals their first look at a clear-running stream in generations, according to her destiny in fiery fashion. From start to finish, “Wonder Woman” is wonderful. On Blu-ray, DVD and streaming. Here’s proof that a movie can be both exhilarating and harrowing at the same time. An Orlando motel overseen by a kindly manager (Willem Dafoe) is the setting for this drama, which pivots on a youngster named Moonee (Brooklyn Prince) as she spends her days running around the complex and its neighboring facilities. There’s not much of a story but there’s plenty of tension thanks to the efforts of Moonee’s rebellious yet loving mom (Bria Vinaite) to raise money for the rent. As “The Florida Project” goes along, it not only grows more heartbreaking but it also becomes a sharp indictment of income inequality in America. In the end, to project manager Nate Schlater.
“The stream where a lot of my work has been focused, Monday Creek, was a dead stream, declared possibly unrecoverable in 1994,” he said. “Today, there’s 36 species of fish living in the stream, it’s nearing achieving EPA warm water habitat status. People are now fishing in the stream. My grandkids are catching fish where there’s never been a fish in my lifetime.”
CHANGING ECONOMIES AND MINDS
Coal country overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump, who pledged to reverse coal’s decline, but just 1,200 new mining jobs have been created across the region since January. That can’t make up for the hemorrhage of the past: In Southwest Virginia, mining employment writer/director Sean Baker has crafted a moving tribute to those souls in danger of falling through the cracks. Now playing in area theaters and on DVD and Blu-ray on Feb. 13
Marked by yet another brilliant performance by Sally Hawkins, this biopic celebrates the little-known Canadian artist Maude Lewis who survived crippling arthritis, a cruel family and an initially-abusive husband (Ethan Hawke) to become a renowned folk artist. With considerable insight, filmmaker Aisling Walsh depicts how painting helped Lewis see the world differently, allowing her to cope with all of the challenges she faced. “Maudie” is a small movie but you can feel Lewis’ sprit alive in it. On DVD and streaming.
In 2017, some of the best films possessed a healthy dose of commentary plunged 45 percent from 1990 to 2014.
Even those with good coal jobs sometimes feel they need backup plans. Rodney Embrey loves his job in communications at the Buckhingham mine in Corning, Ohio, but he’s also started a lucrative side business with a friend selling antiques. Their store is in a building once slated for demolition as an eyesore. “It was a dry goods store when it opened up” in 1905, he said, an era he and others call “the boom.”
The new economy appears to be attracting jobs, tourists and even new residents to the Virginia region that’s furthest along in its efforts. One study there found that arts, entertainment, recreation and related fields added over 5,000 jobs between the year 2000 and 2014. The region’s professional, scientific, education and health sectors also grew by double-digit percentages in 15 years, the study found, as millennials in tech and other locationflexible industries select the region for its down-home charm and outdoor recreation.
“We’ve lost many, many more jobs to coal losses than we’ve attracted,” Christensen said. “But what we’re also finding is that communities that have embraced the creative economy have seen an influx of 25- to 34-year-old collegeeducated people moving in. We can’t say it’s related, but there’s a correlation.”
He added that visitors often come in with a “stereotype of what they think they’ll find . ... Nine times out of ten, they leave with a different perspective than what they brought.” on Trump’s America. It was true of “Downsizing,” “Suburbicon,” “In The Fade” “Detroit” and this horror thriller that provided a chilling reminder of what white privilege looks like. Directed by Jordan Peele, “Get Out” follows an African-American photographer named Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) who reluctantly agrees to meet the parents (Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener) of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). As soon as Chris arrives at their isolated estate, he’s weirded out not only by the way he’s treated by Williams’ family but also by the strange actions of the black members of their staff (Marcus Henderson, a scene-stealing Betty Gabriel). Unsettling, scary and funny, “Get Out” is as good as it gets. On Bluray, DVD and streaming.