Appalachian History Series Kentucky on a Knife-edge In May 1861 Kentucky declared neutrality. That fragile stance crumbled in early September when Confederate forces seized crossings on the Mississippi at Columbus and moved through Cumberland Gap into the southeastern mountains.

Appalachian History Series Kentucky on a knife-edge In the summer and fall of 1861, neutrality in Kentucky faltered while both sides maneuvered for the mountain roads that led into the Bluegrass. Confederate Brigadier General Felix Zollicoffer pushed north from Tennessee after a small success at Barbourville, hoping to pry open eastern Kentucky.

Appalachian History Series Why Ivy Mountain Mattered In the fall of 1861, both armies probed Kentucky’s mountains for advantage. The Big Sandy valley offered a workable corridor between Virginia and the Bluegrass.

Appalachian History Series Setting the Scene On the South Fork Holston River just southeast of Bristol, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority built South Holston Dam to curb destructive flooding and to supply hydropower in the mid-twentieth century. The project impounded a long, slender reservoir that reaches about 24 miles into Virginia, and it became the upstream anchor of TVA’s Holston River system.

Appalachian History Series Introduction Martins Fork Lake is a small mountain reservoir tucked into the Smith community of Harlan County, Kentucky. Completed in 1979 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the 340-acre lake sits at river mile 15.6 on Martins Fork, just southeast of the town of Harlan.

Appalachian History Series Kentucky on the Brink In late 1861 Kentucky stood in a dangerous middle ground. The Commonwealth had remained in the Union, yet communities were split in loyalty and both armies moved to control key valleys and roads. In the Big Sandy country of the eastern mountains, Confederate Brig. Gen. Humphrey Marshall crossed in from Virginia to recruit, while Union commanders rushed to push him back. Col.

Appalachian History Series A county at war with itself By the turn of the twentieth century, Breathitt County, Kentucky, had become a byword for political killings and courthouse cliques. The flashpoint came on May 4, 1903, when attorney and United States commissioner James Buchanan Marcum was shot at the entrance to the Jackson courthouse.

Appalachian History Series How a wagon note, a courthouse ambush, and a hidden rifle shot pulled two Kentucky counties into years of bloodletting until state power forced a weary peace. Setting and background In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the mountain counties of Clay and Harlan balanced self reliance with thin institutions.

Repurposed Appalachia Series Tucked in the quiet valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town of Andrews, North Carolina, offers more than just a scenic rail bike ride—it offers a journey through history. Andrews Valley Rail Tours was launched during the town’s Oktoberfest festival in the fall of 2022, after the Andrews Chamber of Commerce partnered with Judy Fitzpatrick to develop this concept in 2021-2022.

Appalachian History Series On December 30, 1970, a powerful coal dust explosion ripped through the Finley Coal Company’s interconnected Nos. 15 and 16 mines on Hurricane Creek near Hyden in Leslie County. Thirty-eight miners were killed. One man, A. T. Collins, survived after the blast hurled him out of the portal. Another miner, Harrison Henson, was outside the mine when the explosion occurred.

Abandoned Appalachia Series Crossroads in Coal Country Smith Garage once stood at 192 State Highway 72 in Baxter, Kentucky—an unincorporated hamlet where KY-72 meets the old alignment of US-421 at the confluence of Martin’s Fork and Clover Fork, head-waters of the Cumberland River. Mid-century travelers approaching the junction first glimpsed the black-shining Harlan County Coal Monument, a blocky