Wentz Corporation.

This group of records covers two general holding and investment companies set up by Dr. John Shriver Wentz and his wife Mary Douglas (Leisenring) Wentz, along with those coal companies controlled by the Wentz family that were not merged into either Penn Virginia Corporation or the Westmoreland Coal Company.

Dr. and Mrs. Wentz purchased nearly 19,000 acres of coal lands astride the Virginia-Kentucky border beginning in 1899. The lands adjoined those of the Virginia Coal & Iron Company (now Penn Virginia Corp.) of which Dr. Wentz was president and a large stockholder. These properties were transferred to The Wentz Company, Inc., formed in 1907. The firm was reincorported in Virginia as the Wentz Corporation on June 18, 1913. The Kentucky land remained undeveloped and was sold to the United States Coal & Coke Company, a subsidiary of U. S. Steel, in 1917. U. S. Steel constructed the model mining town of Lynch, Kentucky, on the site. The remaining Wentz lands in Virginia were sold to the Virginia Coal & Iron Company in 1928.

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