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TOUR NOTES: Contact Cumberland Tourism to arrange itinerary The town of Cumberland is the largest city in Harlan County. The post office was first established in 1837. The small community was originally named Poor Fork, which was the name of the Cumberland River's highest branch in Kentucky, The Poor Fork of the Cumberland River. The waters that begin in this valley flow through the heart of Kentucky and Tennessee and empty into the Ohio just above Paducah. When coal-boom prosperity occurred during the early 1920's, Poor Fork was renamed to Cumberland in 1927. The central business district is designated a National Register Site. International Harvester established Benham in 1911 as a self-contained coal mining community. After railroad tracks spurred up the Looney Creek valley, International Harvester shipped in lumber, stone, and steel to build everything in Benham. Soon after, they shipped in laborers to populate the community and work the underground mines. "Yowell" was Benham's original name, given by early settlers who heard the growl of mountain wildcats, a creature that lurked under the shadows of Benham Spur. Benham's town center is a National Register Site. Like neighboring Benham, Lynch was a coal mining community built by a northern industrial giant in 1917. This industrial giant was US Coal & Coke Co., which extracted bituminous coal to produce steel for US Steel Co. Lynch's first name was T.L., in honor of Thomas Lynch, president of US Coal & Coke Co. When Lynch built its tipple in the early 1920's, it was the largest tipple in the world. Daily coal production at Lynch often surpassed all other mining operations in Kentucky. In the 1930's, Lynch was one of the largest recorded producers of coal by tonnage in the world.
-text
from Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. University of Kentucky
Press, 1987.
-text and photography from Southeast Community College Archives
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COPYRIGHTED BY: SOUTHEAST EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION AND BOYD LANDERSON SHEARER JR site last updated: |
