Jerod Smith

HIS 580-001

Hariette Simpson Arnow’s House on Little Indian Creek in Pulaski County, Kentucky

Frame house built over original hewn chestnut cabin. Original cabin structure visible in lower left corner.

Photo by the Author

1

Introduction

When people think of Appalachia, images of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, western

North Carolina, east Tennessee and western Virginia come to mind. South-central Kentucky and

north-central Tennessee don’t evoke those same thoughts and images and expectations but the

land and people in the Big South Fork region share the same experiences, trends, culture,

economics, hardships, stereotypes and future that residents of the more readily identifiable areas

of Appalachia do. This is the area where I am from, where generations of my father’s and

mother’s family lived. Sometimes they barely survived, other times were prosperous and the

future seemed unlimited. Whatever the economic situation, all generations shared the land, its

resources and its bounty and its problems. From subsistence farming to wage labor and to

outmigration, and trying to make a living in whatever occupation pays the bills, the story of the

Big South Fork region is the story of Appalachia.

Today the region is anchored by the 125,000 acre Big South Fork National River and

Recreation Area, the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky and Pickett State Park in

Tennessee which is administered by the Tennessee Department of Forestry. The area doesn’t

have the 6000 foot peaks of southern Appalachia nor does it have the thick coal seams of eastern

Kentucky and West Virginia; it is an in-between region that has sought to find an identity but

hasn’t been able to settle on one. As in much of Appalachia, natural beauty on the surface is

underlain by scars of industrialization and exploitation of its resources is still very much a

concern as extractive industry such as logging and coal mining still employ many in the area and

jobs outside those fields pay less and are few and far between. Drug abuse and production and

alcoholism paired with little economic opportunity has crippled a whole generation of young

people in the region and has kept alive a vicious cycle of poverty and dependence on Federal

programs for support. Though not all is bad, many traditions of family and subsistence survive

in the region and connection to family and land is as strong as you will find. The advent of good

highways and growth in peripheral areas sustain families in the region by commuting to work

and allowing a perpetuation of living family history by staying in the region and on what is left

of ancestral homelands. The story of the Big South Fork region is the same as stories all over

America but it is unique in one way; this is the story of my homeland.

2

I feel as if I bit off more than I could chew with this project. There is no way that I can

put what I want to say in less than one hundred or so pages and the work I have completed keeps

me up at night knowing that I have left so much of the story out of this paper. The history of the

region is so colorful and expansive that no library of work could do it justice. I hope that I have

highlighted enough of the area and the parallels to Appalachia proper but let it be known that I

am not satisfied with this project and that I could never begin to tell the whole story of the

region.

Geography

The Big South Fork River (BSF) snakes seventy seven miles as it makes its way north to

where it meets the Cumberland River at Burnside, Kentucky, draining over 1300 square miles of

Kentucky and Tennessee as it goes. (Perry 1983) Two of its three main tributaries, the Clear

Fork and the New River, meet together to form the BSF while the third, the Little South Fork

(LSF), meets up with the BSF after it has already run two-thirds of its course. At that point, the

river has been tamed by the backflow from Lake Cumberland and more resembles a narrow lake

than the wild whitewater that defines most of its course. Except the New River’s headwaters

which originate in the Cumberland Mountains, the rest of the area which the BSF drains is

entirely located on the Cumberland Plateau. Its confluence with the Cumberland River marks the

edge of the Pottsville Escarpment which defines the plateau as it runs in a northeast-southwest

direction. This puts the region in a unique geographic position with the Cumberland Mountains

to the south and east and the fertile Mississippian Plateau to the north and west. (Survey 2001)

The BSF region is on the Cumberland Plateau and the river and its many creeks and

tributaries cut deep valleys into the predominantly sandstone capped plateau. Many of these

small creeks and tributaries contain 100 foot waterfalls when the sandstone gives way to the

harder Pennsylvanian rock leaving a hanging shelf in which the water flows over. In the

southern area, the BSF cuts a gorge over 500 feet deep that slowly gives way to the shallower

100 foot cliffs and rolling hills near the northern terminus of the river. (Deaver, Smith and

Duncan 1999) The river and its many creeks are strewn with large boulders that have made their

way down the cliff to the river bed as erosion and gravity run their course.

3

The region was prehistorically located under an ancient sea that slowly retreated when

the tectonic plates rose. This retreat of the sea left a thick layer of rich sediment that created a

primordial marsh that supported dense plant life. The cover of this layer of by more sand as the

sea intermittingly rose created the deposits of coal, natural gas and oil in the region like

happened in much of the plateau regions of Appalachia. (Lewis Sr. and Porter 1978)

Prehistory and Native American Inhabitants

Paleo-Indians first inhabited the BSF region 13,000 years ago. They came through as

hunters of the large game and fish and as gatherers of the wild plants. No archaeological

evidence points to the BSF region as being permanently occupied by Native Americans until the

late 15th century when Cherokee began settling on small farms in the area. (Deaver, Smith and

Duncan 1999) Most Native American activity in the region was as hunters and brief visits

through the two main trails that passed through the area to the more fertile and permanently

occupied areas in the Cumberland and Tennessee River Valleys. When settlements did begin to

dot the region, they were in the narrow but fertile valleys along the larger tributaries. Due to

primitive farming methods, the settlements didn’t support larger numbers of population but did

serve as de facto trading posts for the visitors who passed through along the trails, some from as

far away as the Great Lakes region and the coastal plains areas along the eastern seaboard.

(Perry 1983)

Many artifacts remain in the numerous rock houses and more surface every spring when

farmers plow their fields. Many areas have been identified as culturally significant such as

Hine’s (Doublehead’s) cave, Yahoo Rock House, Cumberland, Eagle and Yahoo Falls and the

now submerged areas near Burnside, Kentucky. The white long hunters and settlers did

encounter many Cherokee in the area, but not in the numbers that they were in the southern

Appalachians. When it became apparent that white men were not leaving the area and were

there to stay, most Cherokee abandoned their homes and only returned to the area to hunt, trade,

and for short stays to visit important sites. All of their land was ceded to the U.S. in 1805 by

Tellico Treaty which gave away all of their lands and splintered the Cherokee into two factions.

4

Few assimilated into white culture and some both men and women married into the pioneer

families and their names and physical traits still live on in the region today through their

ancestors. (Perry 1983)

Settlement of the Big South Fork Region

The first white men to enter the region were most likely anonymous long hunters who

came to the region for the abundant wildlife. The first document visit was by Thomas Hutckins,

a British Army Engineer who was dispatched by the Virginia’s colonial government to survey

and map the Cumberland River and its two largest tributaries, the BSF and the LSF, for their

strategic importance based on Dr. Thomas Walker’s visit and report from 1750. It was Dr.

Walker who gave the BSF its name. (Bork 1999)

In 1775, two men rafted down the Cumberland River and stopped at Meadow Creek in

present day Wayne County, Kentucky. They came up the creek about three miles and built a

block house and small fort on a small knoll that came to be known as Price’s Station. It was an

area that had been reported to them by several men who camped there on a long hunt in 1770.

The two men, Benjamin Price and Nathaniel Buckhannon, got word out to Harrodsburg (settled

just a year earlier in 1774) and settlers quickly came into the region using the Cumberland River

as transportation. It was one of only three forts in Kentucky to survive the Indian Wars of 1777,

the other two being Fort Harrod and Fort Boones borough. (Ogle 2003)

Price’s Station sits directly on the Pottsville Escarpment; to the east and south lays the

hills and narrow valleys of the Cumberland Plateau, to the southwest is an area formerly known

as Great Meadow. This area was very flat for the region and extremely fertile and unusual for

the region as it was extremely flat. This was the land of milk and honey that settlers dreamed of

and wanted to settle in. The area filled up quick with people staking their claim (though most

would lose it when the area was given to George Rogers Clark in a land grant after the

revolutionary war) so when more and more people arrived, they were forced further into the

Cumberland Plateau. (Bork 1999)

5

That is how one of my ancestors made his way to the BSF region. They were Schmidt’s

from Germany who changed their name to Smith when they arrived in the new world. It is not

known where their port of entry was, but more than likely it was New York or Philadelphia since

they began their journey south in Pennsylvania. Following the great Appalachian valley south

into Virginia, stopping just as they got into Tennessee near present day Bristol, Tennessee so that

a son, John Smith could be born and the family could spend the winter. From there it was on to

Strawberry Plains, Tennessee, and up the Powell River valley to the Cumberland Gap then out

the Wilderness Road to Crab Orchard, Kentucky and down to Price’s Station. When they

discovered the land situation, they went south into BSF country to Parmleysville, Kentucky.

(Sparks 2005) The child, John Smith, would be a founder of the Church of Christ and be forever

immortalized as “Raccoon” John Smith. While not following the exact route, many settlers

would have arrived in the region the same way.

Three other main routes settlers came into the area were Indian Trails. One came into the

region from the Cherokee village Tellico Plains, Tennessee north through the BSF and connected

with the Wilderness Road at Crab Orchard, Kentucky and it was aptly named the Tellico Trail.

Its path is where U.S. 27 runs through the region today. The second was an east-west trail

leaving Monticello and crossing the BSF at present day Yamacraw and continuing on through

Stearns to Williamsburg, Kentucky, paralleling where state highway 92 presently goes. The

third was a trail from Monticello that ran south-eastward and dissected the BSF region

horizontally. It crossed very rough territory and ended at the intersection of other Indian trails

near present day Huntsville, Tennessee at the base of the Cumberland Mountains. (Perry 1983)

Looking at a topographic map of the region, it is hard to imagine a trail and later a wagon road

traversing the terrain but for many years it served as a one of the major routes of the area.

Many of the original settlers came to the area to claim their land grants after the

revolutionary war. Kentucky was still part of North Carolina and after the war, the state was

cash poor but land rich and it was in land that the state compensated many soldiers for their war

efforts. As many as three quarters sold their interests to land speculators or to other possible

settlers for what today would be a nominal sum. The ones who didn’t came and settled the

region and many of their descendants still live in the area and their names fill up the phone book

as a testament to the impact that their relatives still have on the region.

6

The settlement wasn’t formal; it was an organic process with the first arrivals taking the

more fertile land at the head of creeks that weren’t already given to others in land grants and the

later arrivals having to settle on less fertile and narrower parcels of land further up the valleys

and on top of the ridges. (Eller 1982) While the ridge area on the plateau weren’t steep as was

the case in the mountain regions of Appalachia, most were gently rolling or even flat, but the

land would not yield productive crops until machinery and fertilizer became available in the

early to mid 20th century. (Howell 1981) When parcels of land was claimed and staked out,

pioneers also included the steeper land and cliffs into their holdings. This was to take advantage

of the natural resources and minerals that erosion had exposed on the cliff face such as coal and

limestone along with any timber or plants of medicinal value that grew better on the plateau that

the in the valleys. (Howell 1981)

Settlers came to the region earlier than in most of Appalachia. Since the area was on the

edge of Appalachia, it was logical that settlement occurred there first after the fertile regions had

been claimed and before the interior of Appalachia was settled.(Williams 2002) There were

permanent settlements deep into the region before 1790. The Sharp house on Langham Branch

in Wayne County, Kentucky, was built in 1790 and is still a primary residence today and a brick

house was built on the periphery of the region in Great Meadow in 1801. (Howell 1981) By

1803, Monticello had established a post office that received mail from Knoxville and Lexington.

(Ogle 2003) By 1860 the area had been fully settled as much as the subsistence agriculture

production could handle. (Perry 1983) This number would stay relatively stagnant until the early

20th century as out-migration to Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and other regions were balanced by

the high birth rate. (Arnow 1977)

The Civil War in the Big South Fork Region

Slaves weren’t common for the Big South Fork region as most farms were small enough

to be worked by family members. So when the Civil War came, allegiances were based more on

party affiliation, family political views and allegiance to state or country rather than on the

morality issue of slavery. Kentucky was a border state and did not take a stance until a pro-

Union government was put in place in 1863. Tennessee succeeded from the Union but its people

7

weren’t firmly Confederate. East Tennessee was a Union stronghold and in the heart of the BSF,

Scott County, Tennessee succeeded from the state to remain Union in its allegiance. No strategic

roads or valuable military targets were located in the region proper but the movement of troops

around the region and military action on the periphery and guerrilla activity did impact the

residents of the region.

Late in 1861, the Confederate forces had secured the Cumberland Gap and were

fortifying the Kentucky-Tennessee border region along the Cumberland River. This included

Gen. Felix Zollicoffer and his entrenchments across the Cumberland River from Big Meadow

and Price’s Station at a small community in Pulaski County. Federal Forces attacked in January

of 1862 and the resulting win for the Federals decimated the Confederate forces and killed

General Zollicoffer. The fleeing rebel troops were no longer unified under a single command

and made their way south to Knoxville by foraging, begging and stealing food from the BSF

region on their way through the area. (Deaver, Smith and Duncan 1999) Though no records or

soldiers diaries exist to confirm this, their travels would most certainly have to be on the wagon

roads through the area across the Cumberland Mountains to Knoxville.

Skirmishers or guerrilla posses of Confederates would periodically raid the area over the

next couple of years. Champ Ferguson was a regular in the area stealing horses, food, supplies

and just about anything else his band could carry out. John Hunt Morgan was never recorded as

to raiding in the area but he did run up and down the western and northern periphery raiding

farms and towns such as Burkesville and Somerset, Kentucky. They received little support and

even less resistance but their days of free reign in the area were short lived. (Perry 1983)

The 1863 battle of Dutton’s Hill in Pulaski County permanently drove the regular

Confederate Army from the region but many guerrilla raids still occurred on the region. A

skirmish between a group of Confederate sympathizers holed up in a house and Union home

guard resulted in seven of the Confederate sympathizers dead after a pitched battle. Another

instance left two teenage boys dead in the Charit Creek area when Confederate guerillas raided a

home and the boys took refuge under a feather mattress that their grandmother lay upon to hide

them which resulted in their suffocation. (Deaver, Smith and Duncan 1999) Many other attacks

by both sides left the area socially torn and the wounds wouldn’t heal for generations.

8

In the summer of 1863 with the Confederates ousted from the region and the preparation

for the Union invasion of Tennessee was being prepared as to provide some relief for the Union

supporters in east Tennessee. General Ambrose Burnside had been recently appointed as

commander of the Army of the Ohio and stationed his army at various points close to the border

to prepare for the invasion. A major detachment of the Army of the Ohio would be stationed at

the confluence of the BSF and the Cumberland River on a high piece of land called Bunker Hill.

The town was a strategic location on the river and on the Tellico trail and was then known as

Point Isabel, later to become Burnside at incorporation in 1890 in honor of Gen. Burnside.

When the time came to march into Tennessee, the Army split up as the size of the forces and the

terrible condition of the roads (by flatlander standards) would not be sufficient to move the large

force. Two sections departed Point Isabel, one heading southwest to Monticello to pick up the

Monticello-Huntsville Road and the other leaving Point Isabel and travelling down the Tellico

trail to rendezvous with the other detachment at Huntsville, Tennessee. (Perry 1983) While only

a footnote in history, the presence of the Union soldiers encouraged the residents after years of

Confederate raids and staunchly set the political majority of the region to Republicans.

Profit Motives come to the Cumberlands: The coming of the railroad and extraction of Oil, Coal,

Timber and Labor

The timber and mineral wealth of the BSF region was known from the time of the long

hunters. By 1812, saltpeter was being mined and sent to Lexington, Kentucky and Knoxville,

Tennessee to be used in the making of gunpowder. As early as 1820, tanbark was being

exported from the region to tanneries outside of the region. One of the first commercial oil wells

in America was mistakenly drilled while trying to find salt water in 1818 and that year also saw

one of America’s first oil spills. The well wasn’t capped for three days and hundreds of gallons

of crude oil made their way down the BSF. Production of oil was minor; too costly to transport

to market and only local use of it was as a medicinal salve. (Perry 1983) The virgin forests of

the area provided small incomes for farmers who would float logs down the BSF on the spring

tides to the lumber mills at Burnside but the income was supplemental and the work was usually

only done in the winter when tending to the farm wasn’t consuming most of the time of the

residents.

9

The first steamboat arrived at Burnside from Nashville in 1833 but the effect was

negligible on BSF residents. It did provide a larger market for medicinal herbs such as ginseng

and yellow root that were sold by the region’s residents and made obtaining some manufactured

goods easier but most were still cost prohibitive. One major impact of the steamboat was that it

made it easier for news to travel in and out of the region so as an average layperson wasn’t any

less informed and most likely more informed than a rural resident in any other part of the

country.

By luck of location, the BSF region is in the middle of a line drawn between Cincinnati

and Chattanooga. The need to connect the two cities so as to provide a more direct route for

north to south transportation would take the railroad right along the Tellico Trail through the

Cumberland Plateau. Unique in that the trunk line railroad predated any organized large scale

timber or mineral extraction through an area rich in both. This had the BSF region looking

attractive as an investment and it wouldn’t be long before the area was ready for the industrial

age.

The first major impact of the railroad was the demand for crossties. Some crossties were

hewn by hand but most were either floated by river down to the new sawmill in Burnside or if

they were cut from atop the plateau, they were skidded by mules to where the track was being

built. Soon a spur line was laid to get the coal out of the Beaver Creek drainage and another was

laid at Greenwood to export lumber from the newly built stave mill.(Perry 1983) Soon more and

more fledgling coal mines opened and more lumber camps appeared to take advantage of the

close proximity to the railroad and in new advances in lumber harvesting.

1901-1902 was a year that would change the region forever. The Chicago Veneer Mill

opened at Burnside providing a large market for the virgin timber in the region and a Michigan

capitalist named Justus Stearns set his sights on the region. (Arnow 1977) Mr. Stearns made his

money when the timber industry made the move from the Maine logwoods to the Michigan

peninsula and he profitably speculated in land transactions and in his numerous lumber mills.

His company had ventured into salt mining in the Great Lakes area and was looking to further

expand when other capitalists began setting up shop in the southern Appalachians. The BSF

region was one of the last large unconsolidated tracts of land in the region and Mr. Stearns sent

the perfect man to secure it for him.

10

William Alfred Kinne was a college educate engineer who worked his way up in the

north woods lumber camps of Mr. Stearns. He bought into the clean living and social

responsibility that Mr. Stearns expounded but more importantly he was a sincere and personable

man. These last two traits would be how he won over the skeptical mountaineers and persuaded

them to sell him their land and to trust their new, land-less futures to him. He then proceeded to

secure the sale of land to the company from the mountaineers by joining them in church, eating

dinner with them, helping them with legal papers and so on. He rode weekly to the county seats

in of Monticello, Somerset, Oneida, and Jamestown to do the tedious work of sorting out deeds

that were made by surveys over three quarters of a century before. He learned how to

communicate with them and settle their fears with big talk of store bought clothes and goods,

good education and the doctors that would come along. He was very successful and had

acquired large amounts of land that culminated with him and a few other company

representatives sitting under a gum tree in a newly acquired small lumber yard and holding the

first elections of the company officers and signing the incorporation papers for Stearns Lumber

Company. (Perry 1983)

Development of the timber resources came quick. The Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad

(K&T) was incorporated by the Stearns Co. and it extended westward towards Jamestown,

Tennessee and began pulling many virgin trees to the new sawmill at the newly made town of

Stearns, Kentucky. The Oneida and Western Railroad (O&W) was operated by the Tennessee

Stave and Lumber Company and pulled timber to their smaller sawmill near Oneida, Tennessee

at the small community of Verdun. The trains replaced pole roads and skid mules and greatly

increased the number of logs going to the mill and being exported to distant markets. (Howell

1981)

The land that was now under ownership of the Stearns Co. had great amounts of coal and

it was no secret that it would be only a matter of time before it was extracted. In 1903 the first

coal mines at Barthel, Kentucky came on line and soon coal operations were operated up and

down the BSF and its tributaries. The coal was high in sulfur content but the steep erosion of the

valleys in the region allowed for easy extraction by drift mining and the cheap labor along with

close proximity to the Cincinnati-Southern trunk line made it profitable to extract. The Stearns

Co. didn’t use the practice of broad form deeds as they had originally bought the land for timber

11

so with complete ownership of the land and the creation of McCreary County, Kentucky in 1912

out of regions of Wayne, Pulaski and Whitley Counties allowed them to install a compassionate

local government which gave them almost complete autonomy in the region to mine the coal and

log the woods in the quickest and most profitable ways. (Perry 1983)

Production ebbed and flowed with the market as it did with the rest of Appalachia. After

the 1945 coal market downturn at the end of the Second World War, Stearns began to

systematically close the less profitable mines. Only two more new mines were opened after the

1940’s, the Blue Heron Mine opened in the late 1940’s and the Justus mine was opened in the

1960’s. (Deaver, Smith and Duncan 1999) These were also the last two mines to remain open.

The Blue Heron Mine closed in the 1970’s and the Justus mine was sold to the Blue Diamond

Coal Company in the early 1980’s and with that transaction, the era of the Stearns Company

closed after eighty years of operation in the region.

Lumber operations all but ceased by the large companies after the 1940’s. As the Stearns

Co. shifted from company hired loggers to contract labor when the market was being flooded

with cheap logs from the Pacific Northwest region, smaller logging operations of five to six men

would cut the now second growth timber and transport the timber to the remaining saw and pulp

mills in the region on privately owned land as most large landholders had already began selling

off their holdings to the Federal Government to be incorporated into the National Forests.

(Howell 1981)

A new kind of coal mining came to the region in the 1950’s with the advent of surface

mining. Surplus heavy machinery from World War II was available cheap from auction and

made surface mining economically feasible. (Eller 2008) The soil and rock over a seam of coal

would be removed with the machinery and the coal would be excavated by hydraulic track hoes

and taken to local coal processing facilities to be sold on the spot market. This practice became

prevalent on the Cumberland Plateau around the holdings of the Stearns Co. that was still in

private hands. This was before the practice had any federal oversight and the scars of this

practice are still visible today. This practice also came to an end in the immediate vicinity of the

region after the Clean Air Act extension of 1970 greatly reduced the need for the low quality

high sulfur coal of the region. (Deaver, Smith and Duncan 1999)

12

Pioneer Life meets Consumer Society

From the time of settlement in the late 1700’s until the coming of the northern capitalists,

daily life in the region stayed much the same. Subsistence farming was the way of life for the

most part and the only store bought goods would be salt (after the 1850’s) coffee, some cornmeal

when they ran out, sometime cloth for making clothes and other small luxuries. The arrival of

the railroad in 1880 allowed easier purchase and delivery of mail order goods but that didn’t

adversely affect most of the area merchants. (Perry 1983) The arrival of the Stearns Co. and

their company stores had an impact on the region but not the total impact that it would have in

West Virginia or in eastern Kentucky.

The Stearns Co. was different in that living in the coal and lumber camps wasn’t

encouraged; it was used as a last resort for people who sold all of their land to the company and

now worked for them or for immigrants to the region who had nowhere else to stay. Workers

were encouraged to commute to the camps from their farms so that in lean times of slow or

ceased production, they would not take out large amounts of credit in company scrip or depend

upon the company for support. Families were encouraged to farm land owned by the company

and were able to stay there rent free along with the use of any downed timber for fuel in

exchange for looking out for the property and keeping it safe from squatters, vandals and

arsonists.

The K&T railroad offered passenger service to the public and to workers. It had a set

passenger schedule that allowed the workers to commute to the coal camps and allowed students

to get to school and connected the residents to the rest of America by rail service.

As more cash money entered the local economy with the wages paid to the workers, more

and more reliance was placed upon manufactured goods for consumption. Even though many

workers lived out of the coal camps and on farms, their time away from the farm working meant

that their crops were not subsistence; they just lessened the reliance on store bought food and

didn’t replace it. (Howell 1981) Company scrip was accepted by the private merchant

throughout the region and the Sterns Co. didn’t mind if the miners shopped at private businesses.

The scrip was accepted at 95% of cash value so they storekeeper got paid for his trouble in

13

having to cash the scrip in at the Stearns Co. offices. Prices were high in the company story and

high in the general stores of the region since prices were soon based on Stearns Co. prices which

affected the whole region by having higher prices than Somerset or Knoxville. (Perry 1983) My

great grandfather owned a general store and ran the post office in Mt. Pisgah, Kentucky where

during the first half of the century the huge logging of Stearns Co., was occurring to the 6 miles

to the south across the state line into Tennessee. Too far for the loggers to walk for lunch or

supplies, he would load up a wagon that was hauled by mules and take “cold bits” of food and

supplies that they couldn’t obtain in from the small camp stores so that he could sell them and

still make a good profit for his hard work.

Unionization was as controversial in the BSF region as elsewhere in the coal fields of

Appalachia. An early attempt in 1908 to unionize was put down handily when the employees,

most born and raised in the region, stuck by the company. The union issue wouldn’t go away

though and a contingent of thirty National Guardsmen was sent from Somerset to quell the

uproar. It ended with the Stearns Hotel being burned to the ground to smoke out the union

organizers. One was killed and the rest imprisoned. The fact that Justus Stearns had kept most

of the promises that Mr. Kinne had made to the residents back in 1901 greatly helped. There

were new schools, employment for any man who wanted to work, a physician that lived in town,

electricity was available to those close to town or the mines and even telephone service arrived in

1928. It was a benevolent dictatorship but it was still a dictatorship. (Perry 1983)

The mines were unionized in 1938 but the prosperous war years kept most people

pacified. The reduction in mine work after the war followed with the great outmigration of

residents to the industrial areas of the northern United States. Those who didn’t work or were

laid off happily left for brighter economic climates. Just as word of mouth spread between

relatives spread the news of the available land 150 years earlier, residents would follow friends

and family to the industrial centers based upon their recommendations. Whereas most regions of

Appalachia would migrate to certain industrial regions, the BSF area was no exception. Muncie,

Indiana with its transmission, hydraulic and machine works was the main destination for the out

migrants from the BSF region.

The forests are still recovering from the clear cut logging but still provide some jobs for

residents and the wildlife has returned thanks to wildlife conservation practices. Most residents

14

commute out of the region for work. The cities of the region aren’t much more than towns and

the majority of the residents still live out in the country which leaves on vestige of the old days

still intact; the community store. Most every crossroads and junction that supports a couple of

residents still have their own store where foodstuffs, fishing supplies, auto parts, hygiene

products and more can be bought.

Federal Government Involvement

With the New Deal in the 1930’s and the growing recognition of the need for

management of timber resources, the Stearns Co. began selling tracts of cut over timber land to

the Federal Government. It was beneficial to both sides as it helped bolster the nation’s forest

land under federal conservation management and it lessened the tax burden of the Stearns Co.

and other large landholders such as Bowater Lumber Co. and selling the land at $3.50-$4.50 an

acre, they were realizing up to a 400% profit. (Perry 1983)

The BSF forests did not resemble the magnificent stands of hardwood filled with wildlife

that they did as little as 40 years earlier. The only virgin timber remaining were one or two tree

stands of timber in the most difficult to reach hollers. Deer, wild turkey, bear and even fish

hawks were few and very far between due to habitat destruction. Fish were almost gone from the

rivers and streams; choked out by the large amount of silt eroded from the treeless hills and from

acid drainage from mine water runoff. Fires were common in the fall and winter of each year as

logging refuse was ignited by natural and manmade sources (Howell 1981)

Huge Tracts were sold and became part of the Tennessee Department of Forestry and in

Kentucky they became the Cumberland National Forest (later renamed Daniel Boone National

Forest). The CCC and the WPA only impacted the area directly in Pickett State Park and

Cumberland Falls State Park as most of the land wasn’t yet transferred to public holdings or the

area was still too scared to be viewed as valuable enough to spend time improving. While work

wasn’t close by, many still joined the CCC and WPA among other New Deal Federal agencies

and began the great outmigration to areas in Washington and Oregon.

In the 1940’s the BSF River was destined to become a reservoir with a dam located near

the Blue Heron mine to provide power generation. Due to the onset of World War II, the idea

was shelved but it resurfaced again in the 1970’s. Cost was the primary factor in abolishing the

15

plan but action by environmental groups gave the area a spotlight and in 1978 most of the area

became protected as a National River and Recreation area. The 1980’s say the development of

hiking trails and the purchase of the last of the Stearns land to become the 125,000 acre

wilderness area that it is today.

Besides land buying and conservation the Federal Government also greatly impacted the

region after the War on Poverty of the Johnson administration. Increased welfare and social

security benefits began a cycle of dependence upon the government that still exists. The

continual depressed economy of the region and lack of manufacturing or production jobs to

establish a middle class has kept the cycle alive and well.

The Big South Fork Today

The region is plagued by the same problems today as most of Appalachia; drug abuse,

addiction to the welfare state and lack of high paying jobs. Most people commute outside the

region to work and the few jobs in the region are in the health care industry, small logging and

sawmill operations or low wage production jobs. A new Federal Prison opened up in McCreary

County, Kentucky but less than 10% of the workforce is from the region because they do not

have the educational requirements needed for employment and most that have gained

employment there are doing culinary or janitorial work.

The creation of the National Recreation Area has impacted the economy but not in the

way it was hoped. Selling of camping supplies, food and gasoline are the most money the

visitors spend and visitation is not near the mark that was expected.

What the region does need is middle class jobs. Not $8 an hour wage that further

perpetuates the poverty but good middle class jobs that pay $15 or more per hour. The problem

is that the skills and education level is not there to support those jobs. I believe if Federal money

was put to use establishing a small industry there with opportunity to grow as the residents

gained the needed education and training then that would plant a seed of economic prosperity

that would grow and spawn more jobs and businesses. Coming to the area for cheap land would

still be a plus, but it would end the coming for cheap labor.

16

.

Works CitedArnow, Harriette Simpson. Hunter's Horn. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949.

—. Old Burnside. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1977.

Arnow, Harriette Simpson, interview by Mimi Conway. University of North Carolina Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) (April 1976).

Bork, June Baldwin. "Wayne County Kentucky - Early History." junebaldwinbork.com. 1999. http://www.junebaldwinbork.com/wayne/page3/history1.htm (accessed April 26, 2009).

Caudill, Harry M. Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area. Boston-Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1962.

Deaver, Brenda G, Jo Anna Smith, and Howard Ray Duncan. Hiking the Big South Fork. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999.

Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1889-1930. Knoxville: University of Tennesse Press, 1982.

—. Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008.

Howell, Benita J. Folklife along the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981.

Lewis Sr., Richard Q., and Paul Edwin Porter. Surface Rocks in the Western Lake Cumberland Area, Clinton, Russel, and Wayne Counties, Kentucky. University of Kentucky, Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1978.

Ogle, Harlan. 200 Years of Service Monticello, KY Post Office. Performed by Harlan Ogle. Monticello, KY. 2003.

Perry, Samuel D. South Fork Country. 1st Books Library, 1983.

Sparks, John. Racoon John Smith: Frontier Kentucky's Most Famous Preacher. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005.

Survey, Kentucky Geological. "Map and Chart 25, Series XII." Kentucky Geological Society. Physiographic Diagram of Kentucky. Lexington, 2001.

Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

17

18