Monongahela, Pennsylvania (CNN)-It sits on the banks of the Monongahela River like a monstrous monument to extinction.
With no fire in its belly and no smoke in its stacks, the rusting power plant provides only one sign of its former inhabitants, scribbled on a white board in a padlocked guard booth.
"RIP Mitchell," the handwriting reads. "You gave us a good few years."

The Mitchell Power Station, just south of Pittsburgh, actually turned Pennsylvania coal into power for a good 65 years before the discovery of cheaper, cleaner forms of energy.

As fracked natural gas and renewables like wind and solar undercut the price of coal, both Mitchell and the nearby Hatfield's Ferry power plants were deactivated on the same day in 2013.

Many in this corner of coal country blamed Obama-era regulations on their demise, so when a candidate named Donald Trump promised to end a so-called "war on coal," they were ready to believe.

"We are putting our great coal miners back to work," he repeated to rally crowds waving "Trump Digs Coal" signs. "I'm coal's last shot."

But thanks largely to free-market forces, more coal-fired power plants have been deactivated in Trump's first two years in office then in Obama's entire first term. When asked about the President's claim to be the savior of coal, veteran miner and industry consultant Art Sullivan bristles.