Pax: Where Two Coalfield Railroads Met

Pax sits at the mouth of Pack's Branch on Paint Creek in Fayette County, and the origin of its name is a small puzzle. One theory says it is a shortened form of Packs, for the creek. Another says it comes from the Latin word for peace, which feels fitting for a town that existed mainly to serve the coal camps around it.

Growth came quickly in the early twentieth century, when railroads reached into the coalfield, making Pax a rail junction serving the surrounding mining communities of Willis Branch, Weirwood, and Long Branch. When coal declined and the railroads consolidated, the commercial center that had served those camps quietly faded, leaving a community of fewer than two hundred residents in the New River Gorge hills.