Tokala, LLC
If there is something difficult, it is mine to do.
Iyatan Michila
Coming April 15, 2023
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The Tombstone of Early Ohio
Southeast Ohio's Little Cities of Black Diamonds was a rugged region in the 1800s. Nowhere was this truer than in Corning and Rendville, mining towns reminiscent of the Wild West era. Gun duels, scandals, lynchings, and murders plagued these places, as intrepid European immigrants and tenacious Black miners relied on raw grit to survive rowdy saloons and perilous coal mines. These impoverished workers also took bold stands against affluent mine operators, leading to intense clashes with the Ohio National Guard.
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Author and former Green Beret Jobie Siemer reveals stories of formidable union conflicts and the unyielding resilience of miners whose faith was a beacon in a chaotic struggle to restore order to Sunday Creek.
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These miners [Corning and Rendville], as a class are a strange combination of plodding industry and reckless disregard of the proprieties of life… Among these people, lawlessness, fed by jealousy and implacable feuds, is the rule rather than the exception.
Telegraph Forum (Bucyrus) February 8, 1884
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A miner at Corning, defying public order.…It’s quite dangerous as a rebel [Confederate] brigadier.…There never was anything more un-American than the affair at Corning.
Fayette County Herald (Washington Court House), November 4, 1880.
