Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company
The Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company was the pioneering coal and coke enterprise on Paint Rock Creek in Scott County, Tenn., organized in 1889 by outside investors who had learned of rich coal seams in the mountains east of Oneida. Though the company itself operated for only about 13 years before being sold in 1902, its founding act — the construction of a short-line railroad from the Oneida depot through the challenging terrain of Paint Rock Creek’s headwaters — set in motion a chain of industrial development that shaped the New River valley for more than a century. The railroad it built would evolve into the Tennessee Railroad, a 41-mile line that became one of the defining arteries of Scott County’s coal and timber economy.
Origins: Discovery and the Cincinnati-Southern Connection
The story of the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company begins with the arrival of the Cincinnati-Southern Railroad through Scott County in the 1870s and 1880s. Built by the city of Cincinnati to link itself to Chattanooga, this trunk line opened Scott County’s rich coal and timber reserves to outside investors for the first time. In time, seven different short-line railroads would spring up in Scott County — more than any other county along the route — as entrepreneurs and speculators rushed to exploit the resources that rail access now made commercially viable.
Among those who came to survey the new Cincinnati-Southern route was a man known in local historical records only as “Dr. Gruno” — described as a Union physician during the Civil War who later worked as a railroad surveyor. His first name, hometown, and other identifying information are not known. During his survey work, Gruno discovered large coal deposits along the headwaters of Paint Rock Creek, east of Oneida. He then brought investors to Scott County, including W.M. Appelby (also recorded as Applebee) and Robert Hibbler, to form the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company.
Paint Rock Creek begins as a small trickle of water near Tunnel Hill, east of Oneida. From there it rolls through Sugar Camp Hollow, merging with Cherry Fork Creek and several smaller unnamed streams before joining Stanley Creek and flowing on to New River, emptying just outside Huntsville at a place the locals once called River Junction. The coal-bearing headwaters of the creek — located between Tunnel Hill and Cherry Fork — became the first target of the company’s mining operations.
Founding and Railroad Construction (1889)
The Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company was organized in 1889, and almost immediately began construction of a short-line railroad from the Oneida station on the Cincinnati-Southern Railroad to Morning Glory — the point near where Stanley Creek empties into Paint Rock Creek, which would come to be known as Stanley Junction. The railroad was the essential first step: without it, any coal extracted from the Paint Rock headwaters could not be moved to market at viable cost.
The Challenge of Tunnel Hill
The biggest physical obstacle facing the railroad was a large hill along the headwaters of Paint Rock Creek that stood between Oneida and the coal-bearing valleys below. The company’s construction crews resolved the problem by tunneling directly through the hillside, cutting a 402-foot-long passage lined with timbers. This tunnel gave its name — Tunnel Hill — to both the geographic feature and the surrounding community, a name that endures to the present day.
Beyond Tunnel Hill, the grade into the valley descended at 3.6% at its steepest point — a gradient severe enough to fundamentally shape the economics and operations of every railroad that would subsequently use the line. The grade so limited the number of loaded coal cars that engines could pull up the hill that it was estimated to have doubled the railroad’s operating expenses. A dedicated “hill run” engine would later be stationed at Stanley Junction specifically to help pull loaded trains up the steep climb to Oneida. Engineers over the following decades periodically revisited the problem, considering alternative routes that would have linked to the Knoxville & Ohio Railroad in Jellico via a Cumberland Mountains tunnel, or crossed Fork Mountain to connect with the Harriman & Northeastern Railroad — but both alternatives were ultimately deemed cost-prohibitive.
The Community of Almy
The arrival of the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company and its railroad created a small but genuine industrial community along Paint Rock Creek. The settlement centered on the company’s mining operations and the associated infrastructure — miners’ houses, a commissary, and the coal tipples where extracted coal was weighed and loaded onto rail cars.
The community took the name “Almy” from its first post office, which opened in September 1890 with Adrian Almy serving as postmaster. It was very common practice for new post offices to take the names of their postmasters, and for communities to in turn take the names of their post offices. The name outlasted Almy’s stay in Scott County by many years, attaching itself to the elementary school that would serve the community for generations — the Almy School at Paint Rock. For many years, Huntsville Hill Road (which leads over the mountain from Paint Rock to Huntsville) was named Old Almy Road, a designation that still appears on some atlases.
Letcher Sexton, born at the Almy community in the 1890s, recorded vivid oral memories of daily life alongside the Paint Rock operations. His family lived in the second house north of the old Cornbread Tipple, only fifty or sixty yards away from the coal tipple itself. His father, Caswell Sexton, served as a check weighman at the Cornbread Coal Mine Tip House — elected to that position by the coal miners themselves as a check against the company weigh master to ensure accurate measurement of their output. Caswell remained in that position until the Paint Rock company went out of business. The Cornbread mines and tipple were the heart of the operation, and the community that clustered around them was a close-knit world of company housing, coal dust, and the rhythms of underground work.
Coal and Coke Production
The Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company mined bituminous coal from the seams underlying the ridges along Paint Rock Creek’s headwaters. As its name indicates, the company also engaged in coke production — converting raw coal into metallurgical coke through a process of high-heat carbonization in beehive-style ovens. Coke was a critical industrial commodity in this era, serving as the primary fuel for iron and steel blast furnaces throughout the industrial South and Midwest.
Sale and Aftermath (1902–1905)
In 1902, the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company was sold to investors from New York. The oral history of Letcher Sexton confirms that around 1902 the operations along Paint Rock Creek underwent significant reorganization — the oral account mentions that a Colonel Roberts “took over” and dumped some coal at the old Cornbread Tip House, and that around that same time the railroad was extended from the old Almy area, striking off to the right of the old Cornbread main track and extending down about two miles to just below Jake’s Branch. By that point the company’s principal name and original organizational identity had passed into history.
Three years later, in 1905, the railroad itself was sold again — this time to Samuel Spencer, then the president of the Southern Railroad, who reorganized it as the Tennessee Railroad. Spencer recognized that the New River Lumber Company, which had recently established its great band mill at Norma and was sitting on nearly half a billion board feet of standing timber in the Bird Lands, would need a rail outlet to the Southern Railroad connection at Oneida. He extended the Tennessee Railroad south from Stanley Junction through the New River valley to reach the Norma mill, and his son Henry B. Spencer continued the extension southward after Samuel was killed in a Thanksgiving train crash in Virginia in 1906. By 1912 the railroad reached Campbell County; by 1925 it terminated at Devonia in Anderson County — a 41-mile line that would haul coal and timber for decades to come.
The Almy Post Office, which had given the community its name, closed in August 1909, and postal operations moved to Oneida. In time, the “Almy” designation faded from common use, replaced gradually by the more descriptive name “Paint Rock” — the name the community carries to this day.
Timeline of Events
1870s–80s Cincinnati-Southern Railroad is built through Scott County, linking Oneida to the national rail network and opening the region to outside capital for the first time. “Dr. Gruno,” a surveyor on this line, discovers large coal seams along Paint Rock Creek’s headwaters.
1889W.M. Appelby (Applebee), Robert Hibbler, and associates organize the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company. Railroad construction begins at the Oneida depot, heading southeast along Paint Rock Creek toward Morning Glory. Crews dig the 402-foot Tunnel Hill bore. Adrian A. Almy arrives from New York, likely as land agent for the railroad right-of-way.
Sept. 1890 Almy Post Office opens on Paint Rock Creek, with Adrian Almy as postmaster. The surrounding community, growing around the coal mines and company housing, becomes known as “Almy.”
c. 1891 Adrian Almy departs Scott County for other ventures in Kentucky. The community name “Almy” endures well beyond his departure.
1890s Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company operates the Cornbread mine and associated coke ovens along Paint Rock Creek. Company houses, a commissary, and the Cornbread tipple form the nucleus of the Almy community. Caswell Sexton works as an elected check weighman at the Cornbread Tip House.
c. 1902 Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company is sold to New York investors. Operational reorganization occurs; a Colonel Roberts reportedly takes over some mining functions. The railroad is extended approximately two miles from the old Almy area toward Jake’s Branch.
1905 Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railroad, purchases the railroad and reorganizes it as the Tennessee Railroad. Recognizing the timber potential of the New River valley, Spencer extends the line south from Stanley Junction toward the New River Lumber Company’s mill at Norma.
1906 Spencer extends the railroad to New River and up New River to the Norma mill. He is killed in a Thanksgiving morning train wreck in Virginia; his son Henry B. Spencer continues the project.
Aug. 1909 Almy Post Office closes; operations transferred to Oneida. The “Almy” community name gradually gives way to “Paint Rock.”
1912 Tennessee Railroad reaches Campbell County.
1925 Tennessee Railroad reaches its final terminus at Devonia, Anderson County — 41 miles from Oneida. The Tunnel Hill cut remains a defining operational challenge.
1973 Southern Railroad purchases the Tennessee Railroad.
1973 One of Southern Railroad’s first acts is to daylight Tunnel Hill — removing the top of the original 402-foot tunnel the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company had cut in 1889, ending 84 years of underground passage.
2004 Norfolk Southern declares intent to abandon the Tennessee Railroad corridor, closing the chapter on the line whose origins trace directly to the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company.
Legacy
The Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company was, by the measures of the time, a modest enterprise — a pioneering but relatively small coal mining and coke operation serving a single creek valley in a remote corner of the Cumberland Plateau. Its significance lies less in its own scale than in what it set in motion. The company’s principal act — building the railroad from Oneida through Tunnel Hill to Morning Glory — created a physical corridor that would serve Scott County and its neighbors for well over a century.
The Tennessee Railroad that evolved from the Paint Rock company’s line ultimately hauled the timber of the New River valley’s Bird Lands, the coal of a dozen seams across Campbell and Anderson counties, and the everyday commerce and passenger traffic of communities along its entire 41-mile length. As recently as 1980, 125 cars filled with coal were being pulled over it each day — on rails laid over a roadbed first graded by the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company’s crews in 1889.
The community of “Almy” — named for the company’s first land agent and postmaster, Adrian Almy — is another durable trace of the enterprise. Though the post office that gave it the name closed in 1909, the Almy School at Paint Rock kept the designation alive for decades, and the name “Old Almy Road” persisted on maps and in local memory long after the coal mines themselves had been forgotten.
The Tunnel Hill bore, dug by the company’s construction crews in 1889, stood for 84 years before the Southern Railroad removed its roof in 1973 to ease operations — a feat of early Appalachian civil engineering that survived long enough to be dismantled by a railroad that was itself by then nearly 70 years old. In a county that saw seven different short-line railroads come and go, the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company’s was the one whose infrastructure proved most durable — the seed from which the longest and most consequential of Scott County’s industrial railroads grew.