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.

Appalachian Churches Series – Jenkins United Methodist Church in Jenkins, Kentucky On the uphill side of Main Street in Jenkins, Kentucky, a two story brick church with a row of tall arched windows still looks out over the old company town. Across the street the former depot holds the David A. Zegeer Coal Railroad Museum, and behind both buildings the hills rise steeply toward former mine camps and company houses.

Appalachian History Series – The Appalachian Trail and the Making of Appalachia On a clear morning on any high ridge from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail feels simple. White blazes on tree trunks. A narrow ribbon of dirt. The soft scrape of boots on rock. Step back a little, though, and that narrow path turns out to be something much bigger.

The York Brothers, George and Leslie “Les” York, grew up in a musical family in Lawrence County, Kentucky. From an early age, they learned to play guitar and harmonize and began performing locally. George left school after the eighth grade and briefly worked in the coal mines. Even while mining, he continued to play music on the side.

Appalachian History If you stand in Vardy Valley on a foggy morning, the mountains almost fold in on you. Newman’s Ridge rises to the south, Powell Mountain to the north, and the narrow strip of bottomland along Blackwater Creek feels like its own small world. For more than two centuries, outsiders have looked into that world and tried to give a name to the people who lived there.

Appalachian Figures Series – On a Nashville night in 1948 a young woman from Perry County, Kentucky tagged along to the wrestling matches at the old Hippodrome Arena. She was not a fan. Her sister sewed jackets for the wrestlers and had talked her into going. During the women’s bout one of the wrestlers, Dot Dotson, took a spill out of the ring and landed squarely in the visitor’s lap.

Appalachian History On a map, the Cumberland Gap Tunnel looks simple enough, just a short segment of divided highway where U S 25E disappears under Cumberland Mountain and reappears on the other side. On the ground, it is something stranger.

Repurposed Appalachia Series​ – Chained Rock over Pineville High above Pineville, on the spine of Pine Mountain, a long rust colored chain hangs between two blocks of sandstone. From town the links look like a line of stitches trying to hold the cliff together. At the overlook itself the effect is stranger. The rock feels solid underfoot. The drop to the Cumberland River and U.S. 25E feels anything but.

Repurposed Appalachia Series​ – Little Shepherd Amphitheater of Jenkins On a summer evening in Jenkins, headlights snake up Amphitheater Road as families ease their cars onto the gravel lot beneath Pine Mountain. Crickets tune up in the tree line.

Appalachian Figures On Berger Street in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, a dark brick church rises from ground once worked by German Catholic farmers. Sacred Heart of Jesus Church began in the 1870s as a mission for immigrants who arrived through the Cincinnati Homestead Society.

Appalachian Figures On a November night in 1961, a six foot guard in a Saints jersey kept firing jumpers against the Kansas City Steers in the short lived American Basketball League. By the time the buzzer sounded, Whitey Bell had poured in 30 points for San Francisco, one of the highest individual totals in the league that winter.