Harlan County

Harlan County Lake (Reservoir), Nebraska, USA 15 sediment core samples Weathered shales and other rocks agricultural irrigation drainage 5.7-9.0 Christensen and Juracek (2001)... 

Harlan County, U.S.A. Produced and directed by Barbara Kopple edited by Nancy Baker, Mirra Bank, Lora Hays, and Mary Lampson. 

Fig. 106.1 Early coal mining areas of Harlan County. (Map courtesy of Appalachian Archives, Southeastern Kentucky Community College)...

In Harlan County, Kentucky, there were 53 such towns, but they were by no means a homogeneous lot (Fig. 106.1). Historian Crandall Shifflet (1992 24) describes them as complex social arrangements where the nature of life depended on the nature of an individual operator, the life cycle of the town, the composition of it population, and other forces of change (see also Fishback, 1996 Goode, n.d. Coal Towns in Harlan County, 2009). 

Fig. 106.2 Harlan County with communities of Benham and Lynch. (Cartography by Dick...

The opening of the Harlan County coalfield in Kentucky came when the L N Railroad completed the Wasiota and Black Mountain Branch spur into the county in the early 1900 s. By 1921 Harlan had become the top coal-producing county in Kentucky, and the coal operations established at Benham and Lynch ultimately became the largest in the county. The two towns also became thriving communities that fluctuated in size as the demand for coal, and therefore labor, rose and fell (Benham, Kentucky 2009). 

Coal Towns in Harlan County. Retrieved January 20, 2009, from http //home.earthlink.net audra-bill/towns.htm... 

Photographs and Harlan County Coal Camps. Map courtesy of the Appalachian Archives. Cumberland, Kentucky Southeastern Kentucky Community College. 

PorteUi, A. (1990). Patterns of paternalism in Harlan County, Appalachian Journal, 77(2), 140-154. 

Schertz, A. E. (1987). Harlan County Coal Camps Lynch and Benham, Kentucky Cultural Transition From Rural to Urban Communities Industrial Documentary Photography, 1912-1948. Cumberland, Kentucky Southeast Community College. Appalachian Archives. 

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