was customary in those days to
grant large boundaries of land to individuals for settlement.
Richard Smith received land patents for some 300,000 acres of
land in this area from the State of Virginia in the 1780's and
1790's.Clinchco was incorporated in 1990, but the town's history began nearly a century and a half before with the sale of the Warder land holdings in Virginia in 1850.
In 1788, twenty-two years after
the Revolutionary War, Virginia entered the Union as the 10th
state. It was customary in those days to
grant large boundaries of land to individuals for settlement.
Richard Smith received land patents for some 300,000 acres of
land in this area from the State of Virginia in the 1780's and
1790's.
Smith was a wealthy merchant and absentee land owner. In 1806 he conveyed 348,724 acres of land to a group of Philadelphia businessmen, consisting of John Warder, Jeremiah Warder, and John Head Warder for a sum of $12,000. The boundary of the land ran from the Clinch River in Russell County to the headwaters of Contrary Creek in Buchanan County, encompassing most of what is now Dickenson County.
Sale of the Warder lands began in 1850, and it was in that year that Johnathan W. "John or Shaun" Wright secured a deed from the Warders for 360 acres of land, which included and surrounded all of the present town of Clinchco. He built a one-room log home in the area of Clinchco now known as "back row". The Old House Fork of Mill Creek was named for Wright's house.
In 1879 Noah Sykes purchased 853 acres of land from John Wright's son, William B.Wright. Sykes moved his family to Clinchco from Russell County, where they added rooms to the old log "Wright" house, and raised their family there. Noah, and his wife, Susan J. (Arrington) Sykes are both buried in the Graveyard Hill cemetery in Clinchco on the hill which stood behind their home.
Sykes brought the first industry to Clinchco in the form of a water powered grist mill. The Sykes Mill stood in the area of town known now as the Brick Flats.
Clinchco remained a sparsely settled place until 1915 when the Clinchfield Railroad was built through the area from Spartanburg, South Carolina to Elkhorn City, Kentucky. As late as 1913 there were only 18 residences in the vicinity of Clinchco. The early pioneer families simply called the settlement "The Mouth of Mill Creek".
Later, the Clinchfield Railroad
located a flagstop at Clinchco which was called Moss after one
of the 
railroad contractors who worked
in the area. And so Clinchco was known as the town of "Moss'
for sometime. Eventually a post office was established in the
growing town in 1917. The Post Office was named Clinchco, in honor
of the Clinchfield Coal Corporation, which had begun mining operations
in the town, and had made their first shipments of coal from Clinchco
in that year.
There were four large mines at Clinchco, Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 and two tipples. No 7 Tipple processed the coal from No. 7 and No. 8 mines, and No. 9 Tipple handled the coal from No. 9 and No 10 mines. These mines produced over 28,000,000 tons of coal during the years they operated.
The town began to grow as Clinchfield
Coal Company brought in new workers and housing for them. 
During the years of 1916-18 the
coal company built a sizeable town at Clinchco consisting of 285
houses, 10 seven-room apartments known as the Brick Flats, and
other buildings necessary to accommodate such as growing and thriving
community, including a church, school, theatre, doctor's office,
barber shop, confectionery, drug store, four boarding houses,
and, and a company store called a commissary.
For many years Clinchfield, and other coal companies of the day, paid their employees with their own form of money called "script". The script money could only be spent at company-run businesses. Anything the miner or his family needed could be purchased at the company store. In addition to teh grocery and meat departments, there was a hardware section and a Ladies Shop.
The coal company usually managed
to get back most, if not more than it paid the miners. What was
not spent at the store was used to repay the comapny for rent,
lights, doctor bills, and for house coal. At the 
end
of the month many miners ended up drawing no pay, owing the company
instead. One is reminded of the famous song by Tennessee Ernie
Ford called "Sixteen Tons" which laments "I owe
my soul to the company store."
In its heyday the town of Clinchco was known as a "boom" town, reminiscent of the gold-rush towns of the west that sprang up practically overnight. But in 1952 and 1954, Clinchfield closed their mines in Clinchco. They sold off the company houses to individuals, and closed some other businesses. People began to leave the area in search of jobs, many headed north settling in Ohio and Michigan.
This out-migration of people crippled the town, and it was not until nearly 40 years later that the town recovered sufficiently to incorporate and begin a regrowth. Today Clinchco is a thriving community, renewed, and asserting itself as a voice to be heard in the 21 century.
