Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company

Biography

The Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company was incorporated in Virginia on 10 January 1899 as a consolidation of various iron industries in the southwestern part of that state. In the late 1960s the principal income of the company was from royalties on coal land under various leases. In 1969 the company owned 253,000 acres of land and/or mineral rights in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. Properties included coal lands, standing timber, oil and gas rights, ore lands, a flour mill, industrial sites, lots, and limestone deposits in Virginia; iron ore lands in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia; coal, oil and gas lands in Kentucky; approximately 3,000 acres of farming and grazing lands; approximately 75,500 acres of mountain land (including timber lands) in Virginia and Tennessee; coal mining plants in Virginia; and a Virginia plant which processed continuous filament man-made fibers. On 31 October 1969 the company merged with Bates Manufacturing Company, Inc. (incorporated in Delaware, 2 May 1938).

In 1954 the company began manganese mining operations in Carter County, Tennessee, where 13,000 acres of mineral lands were owned with a mining and milling plant.

About 1904 the company purchased one-half interest in tracts of land and interest in land in Johnson County, Tennessee from the Doe Valley Mining Association. On 24 November 1947 the company purchased all of the real properties, minerals and mineral rights, easements and rights of way owned by the Doe Mountain Mining and Improvement Company and located in Johnson County. In October 1978 the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company, a subsidiary of Bates Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, sold 8,300 acres of non-coal lands located in Johnson County for $960,000.

Abstract:

Moody's Industrial Manual, 1969, p. 1810; Moody's Industrial Manual, 1979, Volume I, p. 1447

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