The Hawk's Nest Tunnel

During the Great Depression jobs were hard to come by. So when the Rhinehart and Dennis Construction Company came looking for workers to build a hydroelectric tunnel on the New River in West Virginia in 1930, men from around the country started pouring into the area. Many of these men were African Americans from the Deep South, and they worked the hardest, with little or no safety gear provided by the company that commissioned the work, Union Carbide. The result was the worst industrial disaster in American history. Today we tell the story of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel. You can subscribe to the Stories podcast, for free, at IHeart Radio, RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and on many other podcast apps. Thanks for listening to our stories of Appalachian history.