A few years ago Beattyville, Kentucky was named statistically the poorest white town in America. During decades of prosperity its economy was based on coal mining, but those mines have closed .. and now, reportedly, it's been hit hard by opioid addiction. We wanted to have a look.
But surprisingly, the town looked like any other middle-class community in America. It didn't seem rich, but there were some nice homes, a pretty bank building, decent stores, a modern gas station. Honestly, we were happy to find that superficially, at least, their situation wasn't nearly as grim as we had expected.
We had reservations at an RV park in Lynch, Kentucky, which offers tours of an abandoned coal mine. The drive there took us up and down mountain ranges on narrow roads, most of which had no shoulders, so that if my attention wandered and the outside wheels slipped off the pavement, we would go head over tailpipe down into the holler below. (A holler in Kentucky is a valley between two hills.) Some of the houses along the way were of the falling-down variety, much as we had expected to find in Beattyville (but didn't). We did pass one active mine, and several trucks laden with coal were on the road, so coal mining is not completely shut down in the area.
At one point the highway veered to the left and I went straight - and immediately saw a "No Outlet" sign on what had become a one-lane road. Trust me, this is not a good situation for a motorhome towing a vehicle. That's because your ability to back up is severely limited as long as that vehicle is attached, so even turning around is problematical. Luckily there was an open flat space in front of a ramshackle home, five or six broken-down cars to the side, and we pulled in there. Nancy saw a woman at a window with a phone to her ear, and we wondered if she was calling Billy Earl and Jebediah to come deal with these interlopers. We disconnected the pickup truck that we tow behind the motorhome, I managed to turn the motorhome around, we reconnected the pickup, and off we drove, no worse for wear.
Finally we arrived in Lynch, Kentucky, built in 1917 by U.S. Steel as a model company town, and parked the motorhome at the minimalist RV park there.
The next day we climbed aboard a rail car that took us on some of the original tracks into a small part of the coal mine that for many years was the economic lifeblood of the town.
Along the way it was black dark until some speaking statues of miners along the way became visible. First was an Italian miner from the early days. (European immigrants - recruited from Ellis Island - and African-Americans constituted the great majority of the miners in the beginning; whites did more of the administrative and support work.)
Horses and mules were kept underground to pull the rail cars in the time before mechanical power became practical. Reportedly some never saw the sun after they went underground.
On this mine tour and at a mine museum in a neighboring town we learned something of the history of coal mining in the area, including the prevalence of black lung disease, unionization, workers' strikes and their suppression by management, what life was like in a company town, and eventually the closing of most of the mines in the area. Today work is hard to come by in Lynch, and its population has dwindled. Most of the impressive buildings put up by U.S. Steel have been abandoned. Still, the countryside is beautiful there, and the people are friendly and helpful.
As we were preparing to leave Lynch, Nancy went to the little cafe adjoining the campground and ordered a latte for her and a cafe mocha and doughnut to bring back for me. As she waited she heard one gentleman say to another, "Yes, the Lord has annointed me with prosperity." That's an utterance you don't often hear at Santa Cruz and Ben Lomond coffee shops.
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