Stonega was founded by J.K. Taggart in 1895 as "Pioneer," a name chosen because it was the first commercial mine and coking plant in Wise County.[6] The name was changed in 1896 to reflect the town's proximity to Stone Gap, a pass through the mountains between Virginia and Kentucky. That same year, Taggart was killed during a mining accident.[7] The town was owned and maintained by the Virginia Coal and Iron Company until 1902, when the Stonega Coke and Coal Company assumed control of the operation and leased the land. There were no major strikes at Stonega or the surrounding camps until 1937.[8]
"After being slowed by the depression of 1893, Virginia Coal and Iron Company began building Pioneer, its first and model Coal town, in 1895, around the mine opening at the headwaters of Callahan Creek. Built using local timber, Pioneer straddled the flat bottom land of the creek between Bluff Spur and Nine Mile Spur Mountains, which offered narrow, winding land on which to construct the upper coke ovens, railroad tracks, homes and service buildings needed by such a remote community. By 1896, the new colliery or coal mine opened and was renamed Stonega, a contraction of Stone and Gap. The company owned Interstate Railroad connected the mine with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, six miles away at Appalachia, Virginia."[9]
^Wolfe, Margaret Ripley (October 1979). "Aliens in Southern Appalachia, 1900-1920: The Italian Experience in Wise County, Virginia". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 87 (4): 455–472. JSTOR4248343.
^Prescott, E.J. (1946). The Story of the Virginia Coal and Iron Company, 1882-1945. Big Stone Gap, VA: Virginia Coal and Iron Company. pp. 66, 95.
^Wolfe, Margaret Ripley (July 1, 1981). "Changing the Face of Southern Appalachia: Urban Planning in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, 1890-1929". Journal of the American Planning Association. 47 (3): 252–265. doi:10.1080/01944368108976508.
