Appalachian Figures In the spring of 1919 a baby boy arrived in a railroad town that straddled the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau. He would grow up to play end for Auburn, serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War, and catch passes in the early years of the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

Appalachian Figures On a rise above the Tug Fork at Buskirk Cemetery in Pike County, Kentucky, a tall stone bears the face of William Sidney “Sid” Hatfield. The inscription remembers him as a defender of working people who was gunned down on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch and links his death to the miners’ rebellion at Blair Mountain.

Appalachian History On the north side of East Bernstadt, a single CSX main line slips into the side of the hill and vanishes. The bore is not long by modern standards, only a short black throat cut into sandstone and clay, but it carries a heavy railroad.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths On a foggy night in the southern coalfields, the woods around Boone County can feel crowded even when you are alone. There is the constant drip of water off the highwalls, the clatter of loose slate, the smell of old coal smoke still clinging to siding and jackets. Deer slide through the timber. Stray dogs work the hollows. Every headlamp catches eyeshine.

Appalachian Figures If you stand on the public square in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, you are standing inside a story that began with a clerk, a frontier rifleman, and a small circle of town founders. In 1819 the Tennessee legislature passed a private act that created a county seat for the recently formed Lawrence County. The law named five commissioners to choose the site and lay out the town.

Appalachian History Jenkins, in Letcher County, started life as a model coal town planned and built by Consolidation Coal Company in the years just before the First World War. Company brick offices, a recreation building, churches, and schools rose almost at the same pace as tipples and rows of miners’ houses.

Repurposed Appalachia On a fall day in 1912 a photographer working for Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company set up a glass plate camera beside a brand new frame building in a brand new coal town. The caption on the negative reads simply “Jenkins Depot.” Coal camps were rising along Elkhorn Creek and Shelby Creek.

Abandoned Appalachia Just off Lexington Road in Clark County, Kentucky, stands remnants of a local landmark that once shined along the stars in the summer nights—the Sky Vue Twin Drive-In. The gates opened in 1949 at the drive-in welcoming moviegoers of all kinds to a shared space of laughter, wonder, and small-town connection.

Appalachian Figures James and Virginia Vinson welcomed their son, Frederick “Fred” M. Vinson, on January 22, 1890. He was born in a small brick house located directly across from the Lawrence County jail, where his father worked as the local jailer. Vinson attended school in Louisa, Kentucky, before enrolling at Kentucky Normal School.

Appalachian History Within the coalfields of Appalachia, the mountains rise like folded hands and every hollow carries the memory of a miner’s working breath. Life here has always been shaped by the mines — by what they give, what they take, and what they demand of the people who live beneath their shadow. The Daughters of Mother Jones knew this, and bravely stood beside the miners.

Appalachian Figures On the hill that Hazard folks call Graveyard Hill, traffic hums along Broadway while an older story sits behind chain link and weeds. In that fenced patch of ground the stones of General Elijah Combs, his clerk son Jesse, and their kin overlook the parking lots and streets that grew up around them.