Congo Ohio
Congo, A coal mining town in southeastern Ohio was established in the fall of 1891 by the Congo Mining Company. The name Congo came earlier from a man nicknamed "Congo" Mooney. As the story goes, Mooney an African American himself, traveled from Alabama in the late 1880's with others in hope to find work in the area laying rail for CS&HRR. After finding work Mooney became popular and strong voiced in the areas African American railroad workers camp which his fellow workers dubbed "The Congo"
Congo was the first of its type, called an ideal and model coal company town. Using the ideas from Chicago's George Pullman industrial center Congo was able to grow overnight. The Congo Mining company started out building 40 company houses. The company houses were identical in every aspect except company workers had a choice between one and two bedroom houses. With other coal mining towns popping up all over the Hocking Valley the New Lexington Herald quoted a railroad official as saying "(Congo will be a larger town inside two years then Corning." The Congo Mining Company then hoped to have around 250 houses built in these next two years. Hopes faded for local towns people in the spring of 1892 when a Columbus based wholesale company, Turney-Jones Coal Company took over the local Congo coal mine. With this prized mine the Turney-Jones Coal Company kept up the mine and town's reputation by building more houses and updating the mine with the latest mining equipment. By the spring of 1894 most of the companies workers were being replaced by the Jeffrey Electric Chain and Drill machine pick. But there was no shortage of coal, it was estimated that there was over 400,000,000 tons of coal in the mine which would take over 39 years to mine. In the fall of 1895 the miners went on strike because of water being delivered through a hydrant system became contaminated and caused several deaths.

In 1898 a reporter for the Ohio State Journal wrote, "This community might well serve as an example of a model mining town, except for the fact that the company has complete custody of the property rights." In fact all miners were paid with company money, and had to shop at the companies general store. The company was so set on keeping its money it built a small fence around the town to help discourage outside merchants from taking the companies money. In 1931 The Buckingham Coal Company took over the mining operations in Congo.