Shop Hollow Dump Site, Jenkins

​​​​​​​The University of Kentucky conducted archaeological investigations in the 1990s at the Shop Hollow Dump site.  The work was carried out prior to hollow filling, as part of surface mining activities. Residents of the twentieth-century mining community of Jenkins threw out their everyday trash in this dump.  Shop Hollow Dump was one of several company dumps.  

Consolidated Coal Company (now Consol Energy, based in Pennsylvania) built Jenkins in 1911 as a “model” coal community.  Model towns typically offered services other towns did not - ​a large company store, better-built schools and churches, and recreational facilities such as bowling alleys and movie theatres. Jenkins also had the unusual service of company-provided garbage collection. At its peak, 8,000 people lived in Jenkins.  

Consolidated Coal sold the mines to Bethlehem Steel in 1956. Eventually, most of the houses were sold to individuals.  

​Progressive Era Ideas in Dishes and Milk Bottles​

Many of the ceramics from the Shop Hollow Dump were plain, undecorated, white vessels - plates, cups and saucers, and bowls. They often appeared to be parts of matched sets. 

This preference for white ceramics showed that Jenkins residents were keeping up with current national trends. By the early twentieth century, plain ceramics had become more popular than the brightly colored ceramics of the nineteenth century.  Part of their appeal may have stemmed from “Progressive Era” ideas about cleanliness and sanitation. 

These ideas also may explain the many milk bottles found in the dump. Bottled milk was considered safer compared to earlier methods of delivery, such as in buckets or large metal cans.​

​Historic Photographs

Kentucky Coal Heritage​

Additional Historic Photographs

Coal Camp Project - Jenkins

Ph.D. Dissertation

Consuming Appalachia: an Archaeology of Company Coal Towns​