 |
| |
 |
|
|
|
||
|
EXPLORING
KENTUCKY - February 2005 by Katherine Tandy Brown Fightin', Feudin' and Diggin' Up Coal
Harboring a fierce loyalty to place, this stark beauty has lent its hills and hollers as a stage for makers of music with songs in their fingers and hearts, Civil War soldiers vying for land, feuding families bound for vengeance, men covered with coal dust and hardy There’s no place better to explore the fascinating Big Sandy Valley legacy than the 3,000-square-foot Big Sandy Heritage Center (BSHC), which opened in Pikeville in 2003. The railroad began to chug through this coal town in 1905. Though the original track bed is now a boulevard, the 1924 C&O passenger depot – a Kentucky landmark – houses the center, complete with a refurbished caboose next door. Appropriately, museum management has some pretty strong train connections. “My dad was an engineer,” says curator Everett Johnson. “He drove the locomotive so fast and used the whistle so much, they called him ‘Wild Bill Johnson’.” With the enthusiasm of a rail fan, he points out old timetables and brakemen’s lanterns, and relates stories heard at his father’s knee. In a room devoted to mining, Johnson explains the difference between strip and deep mining, and how coal barons became wealthy paying a dollar an acre for mineral rights. We see old mining equipment, bathhouse baskets that kept miners’ street clothes free of black dust, and a cage that housed a canary used to warn of noxious mine gases. Open all year, the center is a treasure of quality Civil War memorabilia, including bullets from the Battle of Middle Creek (near Prestonsburg), a Spencer repeating rifle, era musical instruments and a bloodstained case from an unknown soldier’s death pillow. “This area tried to stay out of the war,” explains David Deskins, circuit court clerk for Pike County and chairman of BSHC. “Most of the mountain folks were independent ol’ cusses and were poor, so they didn’t have much to do with slaves anyway. That really wasn’t an issue. People chose sides because of their individual beliefs. This is truly where you saw brother against brother. A myriad of story-telling photos backs his case. Subjects include James A. Garfield, who led a Union brigade to victory at Middle Creek, and Confederate Capt. Martin van Buren Bates, a 7’11” Pike County man who married a woman an inch taller, to become the world’s tallest couple. Really. Turns out Johnson is a descendent of Bates. “Once he was out of the Civil War,” Johnson says, “the giant was so disturbed by the public’s reaction to him that he joined a circus.” Bates is but one of the county’s copious characters the museum addresses. John Paul Riddle, a daredevil barnstormer, smiles from a photo in a biplane cockpit. The early 20th-century aviator became one of the first air mail carriers, trained pilots in World War II and co-founded one of the country’s foremost aeronautical schools. Way ahead of her time, Ellie Waller Smith became a published African-American writer in the early 1900s. But by far the best-known residents went by the surnames of Hatfield and McCoy. Reminders of the feud that garnered national attention, portraits of patriarchs “Devil Anse” Hatfield and “Ran’l” McCoy gaze down as Johnson animatedly offers historic possibilities of the bloody altercation’s beginnings. Its roots, he says, were firmly planted in the Civil War, with starting incident theories ranging from a fight over beef to an ill-fated love affair between Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield. Decide for yourself by reading a firsthand account of some of the related battles and funerals in era newspapers. Or pay a visit to nearby Dils Cemetery, where key family players are buried. The whole shebang ended near the turn of the century with a Hatfield hanging, but the hatchet wasn’t officially buried until both family members signed a peace treaty at Pikeville’s annual spring Hatfield-McCoy Reunion in 2003. Don’t miss the museum’s Native American collection, its unusual display of sackcloth quilts, an impressive old tool collection and a book published in 1577 of the writings of Martin Luther. Only in Pikeville! For more information, check out www.bigsandyheritage.org or phone Southern & Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association at 877-TOUR-SEKY.
Katherine Tandy
Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report. |
|
|
|
||
|
Copyright 1996-2005, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2005, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
Chock full of coal, Kentucky’s Appalachians rise rugged, spawning breathtaking beauty each spring when dogwoods, rhododendrons and mountain laurels shout an end to winter’s frosty grays, and cedar-strewn mountainsides brighten with brilliant pinks and purples, creamy whites and soft lilacs. 
29th Humana Festival
of New American Plays