Light dims on US coal country - in pictures

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  Unemployed coal miner Steven Fields, 49, walks through an abandoned coal mine near where he grew up in Verda, Ky. Fields used to play in the abandoned mine as a child before following in his father's footsteps to become a miner himself. "I'm a coal miner, it's in my DNA," said Fields who was laid off from his last mining job five years ago and plans to leave his family behind to look for work in Alabama. "There just ain't nothing for me to do here," said Fields. "I figured I got about ten years left to work, I'm fighting for those ten years." David Goldman / AP Photo

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  Unemployed coal miner Jeremy Adams, 26, left, walks with his wife Tiffany Cox, centre, and her daughter Peyton, 5, as he pushes the stroller of his 15-month-old son Christopher, on their way back to their apartment from the bus stop in Lynch, Ky. "It's depressing. Nobody can find a job around here," said Adams who was laid off from his mining job three years ago. David Goldman / AP Photo

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  A message on the auditorium stage in the abandoned Lynch high School reads "HARLAN IS MORE THAN COAL," in Lynch, Ky. As Harlan County's population shrunk along with the coal industry, the school closed in 1981 as the county consolidated districts and now sits abandoned up the street from the old mines. David Goldman / AP Photo

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  Coal miner Johnny Turner, 35, puts his coal boots on top of his locker after finishing a shift underground at the Perkins Branch coal mine in Cumberland, Ky. Since January 2012, the state has lost more than 7,000 direct mining jobs, some of the most lucrative in this part of the country. Mine employment in Kentucky is at its lowest levels since the Great Depression. David Goldman / AP Photo

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  A coal miner's hard hat and lamp sit in the window of a downtown pawn shop in Harlan, Ky. Mine employment in Kentucky is at its lowest levels since the Great Depression. As recently as the late 1970s, there were more than 350 mines operating at any given time in Harlan County. Today, it's around 40. David Goldman / AP Photo

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  Coal miners return on a buggy after working a shift underground at the Perkins Branch Coal Mine in Cumberland, Ky. As recently as the late 1970s, there were more than 350 mines operating at any given time in Harlan County. Today, it's around 40. David Goldman / AP Photo

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  After spending the weekend at home Scottie Sizemore is handed back a five dollar bill he gave his daughter Rylan, 3, as he leaves to return to his job working at a coal mine some five hours away in the western part of the state, in Harlan, Ky. "Come back," she said, "I will," he replied. David Goldman / AP Photo

Harlan County’s population shrunk along with the coal industry to around 28,000, its lowest since 1920.