Appalachian History Series – Elk Horn Coal Corporation: Company Towns and the Making of the Elkhorn Coal Field In the early twentieth century, a cluster of new towns rose along the creeks of Floyd, Knott, Letcher, and Pike counties. They had names like Wayland, Fleming, Wheelwright, Garrett, and Jackhorn, and nearly all of them could be traced back to the same corporate address. On paper, their story begins in New York and Charleston boardrooms.

Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of John G. Newlee of Claiborne, Tennessee At the base of Cumberland Mountain, where Gap Creek cuts down toward the little town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, a square stone stack rises beside the water. Visitors today know it as the Newlee Iron Furnace.

Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Randy Napier of Perry, Kentucky For most travelers, the signs on Kentucky Route 15 are just green boards at the edge of Perry County. For people who grew up in the hills around Hazard, they tell a story.

Appalachian History Series – Highlander Folk School in Monteagle: Labor Education and Civil Rights Organizing on the Cumberland Plateau If you follow old U.S. 41 up Monteagle Mountain, you climb out of the Sequatchie Valley into a high, wooded plateau that feels apart from the rest of Tennessee. Near the community of Summerfield in Grundy County, a small campus once sat among the oaks and sandstone outcrops.

Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Charles Davis of Perry, Kentucky On paper, “Charles Davis” ought to be the kind of name that disappears into the background of Perry County history. It is common, Anglo, and shared by more than one man on the North Fork. Yet when you start working through the records, the Davises refuse to stay generic. One Charles Davis from Hazard carried a rifle from the hills to the Olympic Games.

Abandoned Appalachia Series – Nuttallburg, Henry Ford, and a Smokeless Coal Town in the New River Gorge If you follow Keeneys Creek down from the highlands of Fayette County, West Virginia, the pavement narrows to a one lane road and drops into a gorge that feels closed off from the rest of the world. Trees lean over the hood of your car, rock walls press close, and the sound of the New River grows louder around each curve.

Appalachian History Series – The Johnstown Flood of 1889: Disaster in the Conemaugh Valley On the last day of May 1889, a muddy wall of water rushed down a narrow Appalachian valley toward the industrial town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Within minutes it ripped houses from their foundations, swept locomotives away like toys, and left thousands of people dead or missing.

Appalachian History Series – Houston Coal Company Store: Carswell Hollow’s Company Town Front Porch If you come into Kimball along U.S. 52, the coal camp at Carswell does not look like much at first glance. The hollow narrows quickly, the creek runs tight against the road, and the Norfolk Southern tracks hug the opposite bank.

Appalachian History Series – Consolidation Coal in Appalachia: Land, Labor, and Life in Jenkins and Van Lear When the Consolidation Coal Company first incorporated in Maryland during the Civil War era, its managers were thinking about the bituminous seams of the Georges Creek basin and the rail connections that could move that coal to eastern cities.

Appalachian History Series – Blue Diamond Coal Company: From First Creek to Scotia and Stearns On a March morning in 1976, the name Blue Diamond Coal Company suddenly appeared in headlines far from the mountains. Two methane explosions at the Scotia Mine in Letcher County killed twenty six men over the course of three days and put a relatively quiet Knoxville based coal firm under a national spotlight.

Appalachian History Series – Brashear’s Salt Works at Leatherwood: Salt, War, and Memory in Perry County Where Leatherwood Creek meets the North Fork of the Kentucky River, the valley opens just enough for a bottom, a road, and a cluster of houses. Today visitors see a memorial park, a ballfield, and green highway signs for Cornettsville. In the nineteenth century the thing that drew people to this bend in the river was not scenery but salt.