DESCRIPTION:
Seven brick company houses, the company store, the B. F. Overholt residence and the Overholt Homestead and Stock farm, and the Overholt Distillery compose the West Overhlot historic District.  No remains of the West Overton Mine & Coke Works exist, only the remants of the railroad bed that served the mine.

HISTORY:
Abraham Overholt had long been mining coal at the West Overton mine, for use at the Overholt Distillery and the grist mill and for the homes of the workers.  A.S.R. Overholt & Company was formed in ca.1870 by Aaron Overholt, who had served at the Overholt Distillery as bookkeeper since ca.1862, and had gained control of the Overholt operations by ca.1870. In ca.1874 A. S. R. Overholt & Company, constructed sixty-four bee-hive coke ovens along the valley created by Felgar's Run, just north of the large barns of the Overton Stock Farms.  By ca.1874 A. S. R. Overholt & Company were operating at the West Overton Mines & Coke Works, at West Overton, on the West Overton Branch of the Broadford and Mt. Pleasant Railroad later a branch of the Pittsburg & Connellsville Railroad (later the branch became the Mt. Pleasant Branch of the B. & O. Railroad.)  They were mining the Pittsburg Coal Bed, which was nine feet thick, with two small persistent slate binders, rather irregular in thickness, four feet above the floor.

The rider was about three to four feet above the main bed.  Of the main bed, seven feet was taken out, all of it used in the cokeing ovens.

There were sixty-four bee-hive bank coke ovens, in size 11 1/4 feet x 6 1/2 feet.  The charge was one hundred bushels, increased on Friday and Saturday, yeilding of forty-eight and seventy-two coke thirty-six railroad cars or 22,500 bushels of coke weekly.  The coke was shipped west.  The West Overton Mine & Coke Works employed fifty men and boys in ca.1875.

By ca.1880 West Overton Coke Works had increased the number of bee-hive coke ovens to 110.

The 1880 census listed over 250 individuals living in West Overton, including a high percentage of unmarried men among them.  These included coopers, farm laborers, mill laborers, wagon teamsters, and various skilled positions, such as a manager, miller, distiller, bookkeeper, and factory agent to run the various Overholt businesses.  The West Overholt Mine & Coke Works employed 129 men, in a number of jobs, in 1880.

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