INEZ — On Sept. 24, the Martin County Historical & Genealogical Society welcomed Anna Fenyvesi from Hungary and Briane Turley and his wife Anne from West Virginia State University.

Professor Turley has done extensive research on the effects of coal mining in rural areas of Kentucky and West Virginia. He has also examined the influence that different ethnic groups have had on coal mining. He is particularly interested in Martin County’s Himlerville mining cooperative.

Fenyvesi is a Fulbright Scholar who will be partnering with Turley on a project to examine Hungarian participation in coal mining. She will be in the United States for approximately six months while completing the project.

The trio visited the site of the Himler House in Beauty while in Martin County. The story of Himlerville will be included in the project.

See the related story: How We Owned a Mine, or A Brief History of Kentucky’s Mining Cooperative