You won't find San Toy on too many maps these days. But between 1900 and 1927, this little town in the backwoods of Perry County was as violent as any Tombstone or Dodge City. People regularly carried guns, and fired them. Legend has it that there was a murder a day in San Toy, although that seems unlikely. What is likely is that it was a place full of men who had little to do other than drink their paychecks and fight. According to Addison Vanhorn, a local, "It was a tough place. If you took a walk up the railroad tracks with a lantern, somebody'd shoot it out."

San Toy was a company town, built by the Sunday Creek Coal Company around their two mine shafts deep in the Wayne National Forest. At its peak around 1917 it boasted a baseball team, several saloons, a jailhouse, the Lyric Theater, and the only hospital ever in Perry County. All of this was thanks to the coal company, which employed nearly every resident.


The Mine at San Toy

Mining is a notoriously dangerous occupation, and in San Toy regular blasting made it even worse. Regular tremors shook the earth. Conditions were not the worst, and race relations were advanced for the time, but miners did die underground as well as in the saloons.


Blasting dynamite undergroud

In September 25, 1924, angry miners rolled a coal car full of burning railroad ties into mine #1, starting a fire which destroyed not only the mine but also the theater and the hospital. Mine #2 operated until March 31, 1927, when the Sunday Creek Coal Company decided to abandon the mine rather than modernize it. I've read where one miner commented that his tools and equipment are still presumably in the mine from the last day of work.

After that San Toy tried to hang on, turning to moonshine for a while, but it was a lost cause. The mine was what had kept things going.




Images and drawings from underground mines

San Toy achieved a dubious sort of fame in 1930: It was the town in the United States which had dropped the most in per capita population since the previous census. In 1931 the 19 registered voters elected by a margin of 17-2 to abandon the town. Today there are about fifty people living in the area which was once San Toy, which is still marked by green city limits markers. The only remains left of the town are foundations, the San Toy Holiness Church, the two mines, and--supposedly--the jailhouse. I intend to visit San Toy soon and try to find these things.

San Toy is located in Brown Township in Perry County, on San Toy Road, which runs off State Route 555. It's near McConnelsville and is actually not too difficult to locate, if you're willing to make the drive.