Built during a time of labor strife in the southern coalfields, the Whipple Company Store in Fayette County is one of those buildings that just LOOKS haunted. Every Halloween, the owners offer tours full of history, folklore, and ghost stories. Producer Catherine Moore set out to do a fun piece about the reported paranormal activity at the store with a couple of local ghost hunters. Well, she got more than she bargained for and found out that there’s a lot more to the so-called hauntings, and to the history of the store, than meets the eye. Now here’s part one of “The Soul of a Company Store,” a three-part series that concludes on Halloween morning.
“I don’t know. I don’t know why. I could smell like a man comes out of the mines and he has the coal dust on his clothes. It just rose up.” Cora Sue Barrett, visitor at the Whipple Company Store who suddenly smells coal dust in a tiny metal safe room.
Wess Harris is the editor of “When Miners March” and “Dead Ringers: Why Miners March.”