Westmoreland Coal Company. Winding Gulf and Imperial Smokeless Divisions.

In 1968 the Westmoreland Coal Company acquired the West Virginia bituminous coal properties owned by the Sprague family of Massachusetts and the Western Pocahontas Corporation, a subsidiary of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company.

Charles H. Sprague & Son was an old Boston fuel wholesale company which had developed close working relationships with several operators in the newly-developing Smokeless Coal Fields of southern West Virginia before World War I. To secure greater control over supplies, they purchased the Imperial Smokeless Coal Company in 1947 and Winding Gulf Coals, Inc., in 1955.

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