While the Yough is a beautiful recreational river, the area surrounding it has a dirtier past. We were reminded of this yesterday in little ways that took a while to sink in. For instance, we would be peddling on the GAP and all of a sudden hit a clearing of houses near the river or up a hillside. Buena Vista and Blythedale were two such towns. These well-kept areas of today didn't have any visible stores or industry but they were built by the coal industry as "patch" or company towns that were created for their workers and families. In many of these isolated villages, workers were paid in script that could be used only at the "company store" for goods further isolating these towns and their people from the outside world.
But that didn't seem to be the case yesterday as residents enjoyed the weather by watching their children play baseball, bike on the GAP or fish in the Yough. The exploitation of the past had long since left.
These towns are a sad reminder of the dangers and risks of pulling coal from the ground. For example, the largest mining disaster in Pennsylvania occurred near the trail in 1907 at the Darr mine, where 239 coal miners were killed by an underground explosion. As we were closing in on our B&B yesterday, to our left were huge piles of coal dust and debris as well as concrete silos and foundations. These are the left overs of the last active coal mine (Banning No. 4) on the PL&E Youghiogheny Branch, which will merge later into the B&O and Western Maryland (WM) railroad lines. These piles need to be managed so their acid runoff does no harm to the area's current main recreational asset: the river.
