Interview with Lon B. Rogers, May 30, 1989

Project: Appalachia: Coal Operators Oral History Project

Interview Summary

Lon Rogers was born in Pikeville in 1905 and attended a Presbyterian school. He talks extensively about his father's job as a coal operator. Rogers father, Fon, and his brother became involved in banking in Greensburg, Kentucky and then in Pikeville, Kentucky. Rogers explains that his father took over the Elkhorn Consolidated Coal and Coke in 1907 due to the debts that it owed to his bank in Pikeville. Rogers describes how his father and his uncles increased production and sold the mine in 1916. Rogers also discusses some legal problems surrounding the ownership of the mine, which was taken over by the Semet-Solvay Company. Rogers explains that his father bought and sold a series of properties and small mines, but was never truly successful in the coal mining business. Rogers also discusses his view of the unionization efforts in Pikeville.

Rogers' family moved to Lexington when he started high school in 1921. In 1937, his father sent him to western Kentucky to look into a coal venture. While there he married. He then moved to Pikeville where he and his wife raised their family. Rogers describes getting into the oil business in the early 1970s.

Interview Accession

1989oh150_app233

Interviewee Name

Lon B. Rogers

Interviewer Name

Nyoka Hawkins

Interview Date

1989-05-30

Interview Keyword

Coal Operators

Interview Rights

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.

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Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

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Rogers, Lon B. Interview by Nyoka Hawkins. 30 May. 1989. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.

Rogers, L.B. (1989, May 30). Interview by N. Hawkins. Appalachia: Coal Operators Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.

Rogers, Lon B., interview by Nyoka Hawkins. May 30, 1989, Appalachia: Coal Operators Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.





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