Appalachian History Series – The Oldest House in Bell County: Rev. John C. Colson’s Brick Home on Yellow Creek If you drive up North 19th Street in Middlesboro, traffic hums past a modest brick house set back behind a yard and a low slope. The building does not announce itself loudly. Its lines are simple, two stories of brick with later stucco and porch alterations that make it easy to mistake for an ordinary early twentieth century home.

Appalachian History Series – The Yerkes Twin Train Tunnels of Perry County On a tight bend of the North Fork of the Kentucky River, just downstream from Hazard, two dark concrete mouths stare out of the hillside above the water. Freight cars clatter through them on their way between the Bluegrass and the coalfields.

Appalachian History Series – The Campbell Building of Middlesboro: An 1890 Cornerstone of Cumberland Avenue The Campbell Building rises at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and 21st Street in downtown Middlesboro, where three states almost meet and the Cumberland Gap opens like a doorway in the mountains. It is an old corner in a relatively young town.

Repurposed Appalachia Series – The Train Depot of Evarts On a quiet day in Evarts it is easy to mistake the little frame depot for a simple photo backdrop. The paint is fresh, the roofline neat, and a caboose rests on a short section of rail that no longer goes anywhere. The building is small enough that you can step from one end to the other in a few strides.

Appalachian History Series – The Story of the Elkhorn City Railroad Museum On the edge of the Kentucky Virginia line, Elkhorn City sits where the Russell Fork cuts out of the Breaks of the Sandy. It looks like a small river town at first glance, but for most of the twentieth century it was also a hinge in the railroad map of Appalachia.

Appalachian History Series – The Elkhorn City Walk Bridge over the Russell Fork On a quiet morning in Elkhorn City the Russell Fork looks almost gentle. The river slides past sycamores and willows, the light catches on riffles below the cliffs, and coal trains roll along the far bank toward the Breaks.

Appalachian History Series – Winchester City Hall: The Tower on Wall Street If you walk up Wall Street from Lexington Avenue and stop between the courthouse lawn and the high wall of the Brown Proctor Hotel, Winchester City Hall still commands the block.

Repurposed Appalachia Series ​ – Brown Proctoria Hotel of Winchester On the corner of Main Street and Lexington Avenue in Winchester, the Brown Proctoria Hotel still fills an entire city block, its limestone base and brick walls catching the light the way they did more than a century ago. For travelers arriving from the Bluegrass and the eastern hills, this corner was once the first glimpse of modern Winchester.

Abandoned Appalachia Series – The Kingdom Come School of Linefork, Letcher County On a clear day at Kingdom Come State Park the overlooks pull your eyes outward to black bear country and the sawtooth ridges of Letcher and Harlan counties. Look long enough down into the Linefork valley though and another landmark begins to stand out. In the bottom, beside Highway 160, the roofline of a brick school building breaks the tree line.

Repurposed Appalachia Series​ – Harlan County Extension Depot: From L&N Station Site to Community Classroom On a short bend of River Street in downtown Harlan, a long, depot-shaped building sits with its wide eaves turned toward the tracks. On the county extension website it appears in plain bureaucratic language as the Harlan County Extension Depot, 110 River Street, listed alongside the main office on South Main Street.

Forgotten Appalachia Series – Dunham High School: Letcher County’s Only Black High School in Jenkins, Kentucky If you drive up No. 4 Hollow above Jenkins today, the road climbs past St. George Catholic Church and a handful of houses before it levels off on a narrow shelf of ground. Here, on a bend in the hollow, a low concrete-block wing stands in the weeds.