9 Hunters Vanished In The Appalachians In 1902 — Their Rifles Were Found Still Loaded The year was 1902, and autumn had laid its golden hand over the Appalachian Mountains. From the small coal mining community of Colewood, nine men set out on a hunting trip into the dense forest northeast of town. It was supposed to be routine. They were miners and woodsmen, men who knew the mountains with the same intimacy they knew the black seams of coal beneath them. They never came back. What made the case