Coal employment for SE Kentucky

I want to establish what happened to life in southeast Kentucky in relation to coal mining employment.  In the process show how the changes are not very different from other parts of country, when economic times change.
Background
Location- Southeast Kentucky
with special emphasis on Bell & Harlan Counties
Pine Mountain State Park
Winter wonderland Ky Forest

Source**

Coal production
1843    100,000 tons of Kentucky production
1879    One million tons of Kentucky production.
1914    World War I  coal; production 20.3 million tons
1920     42.1 million tons of Kentucky production
1936    47.7 million tons of Kentucky production
1940    World War II - coal production 72.4 million tons
1950    82.2 million tons of Kentucky production
1963    Kentucky coal production exceeded 100 million tons
1972    Kentucky leading coal producing state
1990     Kentucky record production - 179.4 million tons
               Total U.S. coal production exceeds 1 billion tons
*Kentucky Coal Education
Coal Industry Employment Note the sudden influx of people in the coal producing areas. Using Harlan and Bell Counties as example most of the new workers would be moving into the Counties with housing being used up. During this time anything that provides shelter might be offered to the new comers. As miners left the mines in the 1950s, better housing became available. So a miner might move into a better house as it became available.

Most housing was rented from the coal company or abandoned coal company housing that was purchased by individuals or inherited.

Maintaince was the responsibility of the owner, especially exterior maintaince.

*http://www.sourcewatch.org
Compare Coal production with employment
Note: With the loss of 10,000 coal mining jobs and the population for Harlan County at 70,000 people in 1950 resulted in 30 per cent drop in population. By 1965 the County loss over 60 percent of the higher paid coal mining jobs. Jobs directly or indirectly tied to the mining industry are extensive. The end result is an Area-wide Depression.

*A New History of Kentucky
Harlan County Population Change
Many families moved from the area to find employment in other bubble industries, such as the auto industry in Cincinnati
area and Detroit area.

*Real Estate Center

If you use Harlan County as an example, they lost 75% of their mining jobs from 1950 to 1960.  Population lost drop was 33% in that time frame and around 55% to the present population.

The boom years started around 1920 and started a major decline in the 1950s.  Another term would be to call it an economic bubble as used by PBS. With wild gyrations in coal employment and workweek per coal miner.

So one could say the bubble burst in the 1950s or strung a major leak in employment with resulting ramifications in the region of Eastern Kentucky Coal Country.

Some other economic bubbles that have burst or strung a major leak are:

        Dot-Com lost 5 trillion per Wikipedia

        Current Economic 25 year bubble per big think-nice video!

        Economic bubbles in history Google

Many times when people look at the Eastern Kentucky Coal field counties, they think of the hard times for the people.  They further think that the hard times are unique to the region.  Further they feel it is the fault of the people.

Well bubbles happen and will continue to happen to people around our country and world.

 Note: During high coal demand times, miners worked 6 day weeks and long hours. When demand was down the work week was shorter than the 5 day work week.
Last Update Mon, Jan 5, 2009

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