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Harlan County Solid Waste Department supervisor Pericles “Lakis” Mavinidis recently performed the last rail cutting he will do with a sledgehammer, just one of many job duties he has been performing in Harlan County for more than 60 years.

Mavinidis talked about his long career in Harlan County, which began at a Verda scrap yard in the 1950s alongside his brother, Ticas Saragas.

“In 1957, my family and I came here from Greece,” Mavinidis said. “We came here on a Saturday, and on Monday morning, we were at the scrap yard in Verda, and we started work at the scrap yard.”

Mavinidis remembered he knew practically no English when he began working in Harlan County.

“One of the very first things we did was to cut the rails because this is a coal mining area, and back then, there was a lot of rail used inside the mines,” Mavinidis said. “We cut the rails that were no longer usable for scrap. In order to sell it and for mills to be able to put them in their furnace, you had to cut them a certain size. Back then, that was four feet in length.”

Mavinidis explained he was first given an eight-pound sledgehammer to cut the rail.

“After six months, we were promoted to a 16-pound hammer,” Mavinidis joked. “That was the promotion. Now, there is a half-a-million-dollar piece of equipment to cut that rail.”

Mavinidis then picked up a sledgehammer and demonstrated how the hammer was used to cut the rails.

“In the summertime, we did not cut a lot of rail because when it’s hot, it’s not easy to break,” Mavinidis explained.

Mavinidis mentioned the rail was transported by pickup truck after being cut.

“We used to load the rail in the back of a pickup truck,” Maninidis said. “We’d have as much as two and a half to three tons in that pickup truck. We’d go from Verda to Ages; that’s where the sidetrack was. There, we’d load the rail into a gondola.”

Following some additional conversation, Mavinidis returned to his Harlan County Solid Waste Department duties.