Casey Gauntt Photos
Casey Gauntt, Hilary Gauntt, Homer
Hickam (2009)
During 1968, the Case Foundation Company of Chicago, Illinois, was hired by Olga Coal Company to come to Coalwood and install a new ventilation shaft. Grover C. Gauntt, Jr, the president of Case Foundation Comapny, thought it would be a good idea for his son, Casey Gauntt, to join the project in Coalwood for the summer of 1968. Casey had just graduated from high school in Chicago, and Grover thought a summer in Coalwood would be a good work experience for his son. (Grover stayed in Chicago to manage the company.) During that summer, Casey lived in a corner, second-floor room in the Clubhouse, overlooking the Olga Big Store.
Forty years later, Casey, now a real estate attorney in San Diego, had a rather remarkable reconnection to Coalwood. Casey's experience is documented in a short film entitled The Letter, which will be on the next release of Steve Date's Welcome to Coalwood DVD.
Casey sent along a few photographs from 1968. Casey writes, "I believe Tim Bowman, a resident of Coalwood, my age, and who worked for Case Foundation that summer, is the one who took the Polaroid pictures of us in the Clubhouse."
View Casey's 1968 Kodak slideshow here.
In 2009, Casey returned to Coalwood for the 2009 October Sky Festival. Casey also sent along some photos of that trip.
View Casey's 2009 Kodak slideshow here.
For those of you who are interested, here is a link to today's Case
Foundation web site:
http://www.casefoundation.com