Appalachian Figures Pikeville beginnings John Paul Riddle was born in Pikeville in 1901 and came of age while aviation was still a dare. He graduated from Pikeville College Academy in 1920, a few years before airplanes became a common sight over the Big Sandy.

Appalachian Figures A Pike County racer who took Daytona Thomas Ferrel Harris grew up to be a stock car lifer with deep eastern Kentucky roots and a talent for high-speed drafting. He was born on October 8, 1940, in Seale, Alabama, and spent his adult life in Pike County, Kentucky.

Appalachian History Series A curious death in Greenbrier County In late January 1897 a Lewisburg weekly carried a short notice about a young wife’s death. The Greenbrier Independent identified her only as “Mrs. Shue,” reported the date, and moved on. Few readers could guess that Elva Zona Heaster Shue’s passing would become one of Appalachia’s most retold stories. Local memory says a ghost pointed the finger at a killer.

Appalachian History Series April 5, 2010 Just after three in the afternoon at Montcoal, West Virginia, a methane ignition inside the Upper Big Branch South mine became an explosion that swept through the workings. Twenty nine miners were killed, and two survived with injuries. Federal investigators later said the disaster was preventable. What investigators found Federal and state teams reconstructed the blast and its causes.

Appalachian History Series A November evening that changed a town On November 14, 1970, a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 carrying the Marshall University football team, coaches, staff, boosters, and crew struck trees on approach to Tri-State Airport near Huntington, West Virginia. All 75 aboard were killed.

Appalachian Figures A strike comes to Brookside In the summer of 1973 miners at the Eastover Coal Company’s Brookside mine in Harlan County voted to affiliate with the United Mine Workers of America. When the company refused to sign a contract that matched area standards and included a meaningful right to strike, the miners walked out and set up pickets.

Appalachian Figures A Harlan County beginning Elbert Benjamin “E. B.” Smith was born in Benham, Kentucky, on May 1, 1921, the son of Elbert and Gladys Smith. Benham was a young company town in Harlan County when Smith arrived, and like many Appalachian families of his generation his early years unfolded in a landscape shaped by coal and community churches.

Appalachian Figures Pine Mountain Settlement School began with a local farmer’s gift and a plainspoken promise. William “Uncle William” Creech of Harlan County wanted a school where his neighbors’ children could learn without leaving the valley. In his own words he had “heart and craving that our people may grow better,” and he put land and effort behind the idea.

Appalachian Figures From Harlan to the Army Carl Henry Dodd was born in Harlan County and came of age in a coal camp world that sent many young men into uniform. Before his eighteenth birthday he worked for the Black Mountain Coal Company, then enlisted in the Army at 18, beginning a career that would stretch across World War II and the Korean War.

Appalachian Figures A Harlan County beginning Jerry Donald Chesnut was born in the railroad town of Loyall in Harlan County on May 7, 1931. Multiple primary records fix his birthplace and date, and they place him in the household of A. B. (Alvin Basil) and Ruby Chesnut in Loyall as a child.

Appalachian Figures Silas Harlan’s short life sits at the crossroads of early Kentucky settlement, George Rogers Clark’s western campaigns, and the last major battle of the Revolution in the Ohio Valley. Harlan helped build a Salt River station, scouted for Clark, wrote home about a plan to fortify the “Iron Banks” on the Mississippi, and fell at Blue Licks in 1782. In 1819, the legislature created Harlan County and named it for him.