About The Location:
Thomas, West Virginia
Thomas was platted in 1884.Thomas was named for Thomas Beall Davis (1828-1911), brother of Senator Henry Gassaway Davis.The Davis brothers, in 1883, opened a mine near Thomas and had coal ready to ship when their railway arrived a year later. By 1892, Davis Coal and Coke was among the largest and best known coal companies in the world and employed 1,600 people. At the peak of its operations in 1915, there were nine producing mines within a mile of the company's office in Thomas.
Immigrants flocked to the area as miners, railroad laborers, or merchants. The Company employed a man named Wladyslaw Dackiewicz as an interpreter. He could speak, read, and write eight languages and his services were much in demand with the influx of immigrants.
In 1901, in less than two hours, nearly half of Thomas (83 buildings) was destroyed by a fire. The city was quickly rebuilt with fine hotels and a new opera house. The Cottrill Opera House had a saloon on the first floor which was by far the most elegant of the eight bars located on Front Street. In 1909, Front Street (also known as First Street, Main Street, and East Avenue) was laid with brick to become the first paved street in the county.
Thomas claimed the grandest railway station between Cumberland, Maryland, and Elkins, West Virginia. Built of brick in 1901. It was destroyed by a tornado in 1944.
In 1921, coke production ceased and mining operations have diminished.
To See More of Thomas, West Virginia click the button below:
The north fork of the Blackwater River flows through Thomas and features predominately through the film as a metaphor.
As with other blackwater rivers, the color of West Virginia's Blackwater River results from the leaching of tannins from the decaying leaves of vegetation adjoining the stream in its upper reaches, which are slow moving. Fallen needles from stands of eastern hemlock and red spruce contribute primarily to this, although rhododendron, mountain laurel and the sphagnum bogs of Canaan Valley also contribute.[citation needed] The Blackwater is also typical in having transparent, acidic, and oligotrophic (very low nutrient) water.
Beginning in the 1880s,[citation needed] the Blackwater River watershed (especially the segment of the North Fork of the Blackwater River between the towns of Thomas and Douglas) suffered extreme environmental degradation due to deep mining and coke production. This was exacerbated by the surface mining activities of the 1960s and '70s,[citation needed] which brought about a severe decline in water quality due to acid mine drainage
The North Fork Blackwater River drops over a ledge creating the spectacular 35-foot Douglas Falls. The falls splash down into a unique emerald-colored pool, creating a landscape unlike any other.
The pools of water below the falls that shift in color from emerald to aquamarine are distinctly unique. Also unusual are the orange stained rocks that gained their color from West Virginia's coal mining days.