beautiful. Yellow Creek becomes in local pronunciation "Yaller Crick."
One cannot be long in eastern Kentucky without being struck by the
number and character of the names given to the watercourses, which were
the natural avenues of migratory travel. Few of the mountains have
names. What a history is shut up in these names! Cutshin Creek, where
some pioneer, they say, damaged those useful members; but more probably
where grows a low greenbrier which cuts the shins and riddles
the pantaloons. These pioneers had humor. They named one creek
"Troublesome," for reasons apparent to him who goes there; another, "No
Worse Creek," on equally good grounds; another, "Defeated Creek;" and a
great many, "Lost Creek." In one part of the country it is possible for
one to enter "Hell fur Sartain," and get out at "Kingdom Come." Near by
are "Upper Devil" and "Lower Devil." One day we went to a mountain
meeting which was held in "a school-house and church-house" on
"Stinking Creek." One might suppose they would have worshipped in a more
fragrant locality; but the stream is very beautiful, and not malodorous.
It received its name from its former canebrakes and deer licks, which
made game abundant. Great numbers were killed for choice bits of venison
and hides. Then there are "Ten-mile Creek" and "Sixteen-mile Creek,"
meaning to clinch the distance by name; and what is philologically
interesting, one finds numerous "_Trace_ Forks," originally "_Trail_
Forks."
[Illustration: OLD CORN-MILL AT PINEVILLE.]
Bell County and the Yellow Creek Valley serve to illustrate the
incalculable mineral and timber resources of eastern Kentucky. Our road
at times cut through forests of magnificent timbers--oak (black and
white), walnut (black and white), poplar, maple, and chestnut, beech,
lynn, gum, dogwood, and elm. Here are some of the finest coal-fields in
the world, the one on Clear Creek being fourteen feet thick. Here are
pure cannel-coals and coking-coals. At no other point in the Mississippi
Valley are iron ores suitable for steel-making purposes so close to fuel
so cheap. With an eastern coal-field of 10,000 square miles, with an
area equally large covered with a virgin growth of the finest economic
timbers, with watercourses feasible and convenient, it cannot be long
before eastern Kentucky will be opened up to great industries.
Enterprise has already turned hither, and the distinctiveness of the
mountaineer race already begins to disappear. The two futures before
them are, to be swept out of these mountains by the in-rushing spirit of
contending industries, or to be aroused, civilized, and developed.
Long before you come in sight of the great Gap, the idea of it dominates
the mind. While yet some miles away it looms up, 1675 feet in elevation,
some half a mile across from crest to crest, the pinnacle on the left
towering to the height of 2500 feet.
It was late in the afternoon when our tired horses began the long,
winding, rocky climb from the valley to the brow of the pass. As we
stood in the passway, amid the deepening shadows of the twilight and the
solemn repose of the mighty landscape, the Gap seemed to be crowded with
two invisible and countless pageants of human life, the one passing
in, the other passing out; and the air grew thick with unheard
utterances--primeval sounds, undistinguishable and strange, of creatures
nameless and never seen by man; the wild rush and whoop of retreating
and pursuing tribes; the slow steps of watchful pioneers; the wail of
dying children and the songs of homeless women; the muffled tread of
routed and broken armies--all the sounds of surprise and delight,
victory and defeat, hunger and pain, and weariness and despair, that the
human heart can utter. Here passed the first of the white race who led
the way into the valley of the Cumberland; here passed that small band
of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here passed the "Long
Hunters;" here rushed the armies of the Civil War; here has passed the
wave of westerly emigration, whose force has spent itself only on the
Pacific slopes; and here in the long future must flow backward and
forward the wealth of the North and the South.
MOUNTAIN PASSES OF THE CUMBERLAND
I
The writer has been publishing during the last few years a series of
articles on Kentucky. With this article the series will be brought to a
close. Hitherto he has written of nature in the Blue-grass Region and of
certain aspects of life; but as he comes to take leave of his theme, he
finds his attention fixed upon that great mountain wall which lies along
the southeastern edge of the State. At various points of this wall are
now beginning to be enacted new scenes in the history of Kentucky; and
what during a hundred years has been an inaccessible background, is
becoming the fore-front of a civilization which will not only change the
life of the State within, but advance it to a commanding position in
national economic affairs.
But it should not be lost sight of that in writing this article, as in
writing all the others, it is with the human problem in Kentucky that he
is solely concerned. He will seem to be dealing with commercial
activities for their own sake. He will write of coals and ores and
timbers, of ovens and tunnels and mines; but if the reader will bear
with him to the end, he will learn that these are dealt with only for
the sake of looking beyond them at the results which they bring on:
town-making in various stages, the massing and distributing of wealth,
the movements of population, the dislodgment of isolated customs--on the
whole, results that lie in the domain of the human problem in its
deepest phases.
Consider for a moment, then, what this great wall is, and what influence
it has had over the history of Kentucky and upon the institutions and
characteristics of its people.
You may begin at the western frontier of Kentucky on the Mississippi
River, about five hundred miles away, and travel steadily eastward
across the billowy plateau of the State, going up and up all the time
until you come to its base, and above its base it rises to the height of
some three thousand feet. For miles before you reach it you discover
that it is defended by a zone of almost inaccessible hills with steep
slopes, forests difficult to penetrate, and narrow jagged gorges; and
further defended by a single sharp wall-like ridge, having an elevation
of about twenty-two hundred feet, and lying nearly parallel with it, at
a distance of about twenty miles. Or, if you should attempt to reach
this wall from the south, you would discover that from that side also it
is hardly less hostile to approach. Hence it has stood in its virgin
wilderness, a vast isolating and isolated barrier, fierce, beautiful,
storm-racked, serene; in winter, brown and gray, with its naked woods
and rifts of stone, or mantled in white; in summer, green, or of all
greens from darkest to palest, and touched with all shades of bloom; in
autumn, colored like the sunset clouds; curtained all the year by
exquisite health-giving atmospheres, lifting itself all the year towards
lovely, changing skies.
Understand the position of this natural fortress-line with regard to the
area of Kentucky. That area has somewhat the shape of an enormous flat
foot, with a disjointed big toe, a roughly hacked-off ankle, and a
missing heel. The sole of this huge foot rests solidly on Tennessee, the
Ohio River trickles across the ankle and over the top, the big toe is
washed entirely off by the Tennessee River, and the long-missing heel is
to be found in Virginia, never having been ceded by that State. Between
the Kentucky foot and the Virginia heel is piled up this immense, bony,
grisly mass of the Cumberland Mountain, extending some three hundred
miles north-east and south-west.
It was through this heel that Kentucky had to be peopled. The thin,
half-starved, weary line of pioneer civilizers had to penetrate it, and
climb this obstructing mountain wall, as a line of travelling ants might
climb the wall of a castle. In this case only the strongest of the
ants--the strongest in body, the strongest in will--succeeded in getting
over and establishing their colony in the country far beyond. Luckily
there was an enormous depression in the wall, or they might never have
scaled it. During about half a century this depression was the
difficult, exhausting entrance-point through which the State received
the largest part of its people, the furniture of their homes, and the
implements of their civilization; so that from the very outset that
people represented the most striking instance of a survival of the
fittest that may be observed in the founding of any American
commonwealth. The feeblest of the ants could not climb the wall; the
idlest of them would not. Observe, too, that, once on the other side, it
was as hard to get back as it had been to get over. That is, the
Cumberland Mountain kept the little ultramontane society isolated. Being
isolated, it was kept pure-blooded. Being isolated, it developed the
spirit and virtues engendered by isolation. Hence those traits
for which Kentuckians were once, and still think themselves,
distinguished--passion for self-government, passion for personal
independence, bravery, fortitude, hospitality. On account of this
mountain barrier the entire civilization of the State has had a
one-sided development. It has become known for pasturage and
agriculture, whiskey, hemp, tobacco, and fine stock. On account of it
the great streams of colonization flowing from the North towards the
South, and flowing from the Atlantic seaboard towards the West, have
divided and passed around Kentucky as waters divide and pass around an
island, uniting again on the farther side. It has done the like for the
highways of commerce, so that the North has become woven to the South
and the East woven to the West by a connecting tissue of railroads,
dropping Kentucky out as though it had no vital connection, as though it
were not a controlling point of connection, for the four sections of the
country. Thus keeping out railroads, it has kept out manufactures, kept
out commerce, kept out industrial cities. For three-quarters of a
century generations of young Kentuckians have had to seek pursuits of
this character in other quarters, thus establishing a constant draining
away from the State of its resolute, vigorous manhood. Restricting the
Kentuckians who have remained to an agricultural type of life, it has
brought upon them a reputation for lack of enterprise. More than all
this has that great barrier wall done for the history of Kentucky. For,
within a hundred years, the only thing to take possession of it, slowly,
sluggishly overspreading the region of its foot-hills, its vales and
fertile slopes--the only thing to take possession of it and to claim it
has been a race of mountaineers, an idle, shiftless, ignorant, lawless
population, whose increasing numbers, pauperism, and lawlessness, whose
family feuds and clan-like vendettas, have for years been steadily
gaining for Kentucky the reputation for having one of the worst
backwoods populations on the continent, or, for that matter, in the
world.
But for the presence of this wall the history of the State, indeed the
history of the United States, would have been profoundly different. Long
ago, in virtue of its position, Kentucky would have knit together,
instead of holding apart, the North and the South. The campaigns and the
results of the Civil War would have been changed; the Civil War might
never have taken place. But standing as it has stood, it has left
Kentucky, near the close of the first century of its existence
as a State, with a reputation somewhat like the shape of its
territory--unsymmetric, mutilated, and with certain parts missing.
But now consider this wall of the Cumberland Mountain from another point
of view. If you should stand on the crest at any point where it forms
the boundary of Kentucky; or south of it, where it extends into
Tennessee; or north of it, where it extends into Virginia--if you should
stand thus and look northward, you would look out upon a vast area of
coal. For many years now it has been known that the coal-measure rocks
of eastern Kentucky comprise about a fourth of the area of the State,
and are not exceeded in value by those of any other State. It has been
known that this buried solar force exceeds that of Great Britain. Later
it has become known that the Kentucky portion of the great Appalachian
coal-field contains the largest area of rich cannel-coals yet
discovered, these having been traced in sixteen counties, and some of
them excelling by test the famous cannel-coal of Great Britain; later it
has become known that here is to be found the largest area of
coking-coal yet discovered, the main coal--discovered a few years ago,
and named the "Elkhorn"--having been traced over sixteen hundred square
miles, and equalling American standard coke in excellence.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING MOUNTAIN PASSES OF THE CUMBERLAND.]
Further, looking northward, you look out upon a region of iron ores, the
deposits in Kentucky ranking sixth in variety and extent among those to
be found in all other States, and being better disposed for working than
any except those of Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama. For a hundred
years now, it should be remembered in this connection, iron has been
smelted in Kentucky, been and been an important article of commerce. As
early as 1823 it was made at Cumberland Gap, and shipped by river to
markets as remote as New Orleans and St. Louis. At an early date, also,
it was made in a small charcoal forge at Big Creek Gap, and was hauled
in wagons into central Kentucky, where it found a ready market for such
purposes as plough-shares and wagon tires.
Further, looking northward, you have extending far and wide before you
the finest primeval region of hard-woods in America.
Suppose, now, that you turn and look from this same crest of the
Cumberland Mountain southward, or towards the Atlantic seaboard. In that
direction there lie some two hundred and fifty thousand square miles of
country which is practically coalless; but practically coalless, it is
incalculably rich in iron ores for the manufacture of iron and steel.
You look out upon the new industrial empire of the United States, with
vast and ever-growing needs of manufactures, fuel, and railroads. That
is, for a hundred miles you stand on the dividing line of two distinct
geological formations: to the north, the Appalachian coal-fields; to the
south, mountains of iron ores; rearing itself between these, this
immense barrier wall, which creates an unapproachable wilderness not
only in southeastern Kentucky, but in East Tennessee, western
Virginia, and western North Carolina--the largest extent of country in
the United States remaining undeveloped.
But the time had to come when this wilderness would be approached on all
sides, attacked, penetrated to the heart. Such wealth of resources could
not be let alone or remain unused. As respects the development of the
region, the industrial problem may be said to have taken two forms--the
one, the development of the coal and iron on opposite sides of the
mountains, the manufacture of coke and iron and steel, the establishment
of wood-working industries, and the delivery of all products to the
markets of the land; second, the bringing together of the coals on the
north side and the ores throughout the south. In this way, then, the
Cumberland Mountain no longer offered a barrier merely to the
civilization of Kentucky, but to the solution of the greatest economic
problem of the age--the cheapest manufacture of iron and steel. But
before the pressure of this need the mountain had to give way and
surrender its treasures. At any cost of money and labor, the time had to
come when it would pay to bring these coals and ores together. But how
was this to be done? The answer was simple: it must be done by means of
natural water gaps and by tunnels through the mountain. It is the object
of this paper to call attention to the way in which the new civilization
of the South is expected to work at four mountain passes, and to point
out some of the results which are to follow.
II
On the Kentucky side of the mighty wall of the Cumberland Mountain, and
nearly parallel with it, is the sharp single wall of Pine Mountain, the
westernmost ridge of the Alleghany system. For about a hundred miles
these two gnarled and ancient monsters lie crouched side by side,
guarding between them their hidden stronghold of treasure--an immense
valley of timbers and irons and coals. Near the middle point of this
inner wall there occurs a geological fault. The mountain falls apart as
though cut in twain by some heavy downward stroke, showing on the faces
of the fissure precipitous sides wooded to the crests. There is thus
formed the celebrated and magnificent pass through which the Cumberland
River--one of the most beautiful in the land--slips silently out of its
mountain valley, and passes on to the hills and the plateaus of
Kentucky. In the gap there is a space for the bed of this river, and on
each side of the river space for a roadway and nothing more.
[Illustration: CUMBERLAND GAP.]
Note the commanding situation of this inner pass. Travel east along Pine
Mountain or travel west, and you find no other water gap within a
hundred miles. Through this that thin, toiling line of pioneer
civilizers made its way, having scaled the great outer Cumberland
wall some fifteen miles southward. But for this single geological fault,
by which a water gap of the inner mountain was placed opposite a
depression in the outer mountain, thus creating a continuous passway
through both, the colonization of Kentucky, difficult enough even with
this advantage, would have been indefinitely delayed, or from this side
wholly impossible. Through this inner portal was traced in time the
regular path of the pioneers, afterwards known as the Wilderness Road.
On account of the travel over this road and the controlling nature of
the site, there was long ago formed on the spot a little backwoods
settlement, calling itself Pineville. It consisted of a single
straggling line of cabins and shanties of logs on each side of a
roadway, this road being the path of the pioneers. In the course of time
it was made the county-seat. Being the county-seat, the way-side
village, catching every traveller on foot or on horse or in wagons,
began some years ago to make itself still better known as the scene of
mountain feuds. The name of the town when uttered anywhere in Kentucky
suggested but one thing--a blot on the civilization of the State, a
mountain fastness where the human problem seems most intractable. A few
such places have done more to foster the unfortunate impression which
Kentucky has made upon the outside world than all the towns of the
blue-grass country put together.
Five summers ago, in 1885, in order to prepare an article for HARPER'S
MAGAZINE on the mountain folk of the Cumberland region, I made my way
towards this mountain town, now riding on a buck-board, now on a horse
whose back was like a board that was too stiff to buck. The road I
travelled was that great highway between Kentucky and the South which at
various times within a hundred years has been known as the Wilderness
Road, or the Cumberland Road, or the National Turnpike, or the "Kaintuck
Hog Road," as it was called by the mountaineers. It is impossible to
come upon this road without pausing, or to write of it without a
tribute. It led from Baltimore over the mountains of Virginia through
the great wilderness by Cumberland Gap. All roads below Philadelphia
converged at this gap, just as the buffalo and Indian trails had earlier
converged, and just as many railroads are converging now. The
improvement of this road became in time the pet scheme of the State
governments of Virginia and Kentucky. Before the war millions of head of
stock--horses, hogs, cattle, mules--were driven over it to the southern
markets; and thousands of vehicles, with families and servants and
trunks, have somehow passed over it, coming northward into Kentucky, or
going southward on pleasure excursions. During the war vast commissary
stores passed back and forth, following the movement of armies. But
despite all this--despite all that has been done to civilize it since
Boone traced its course in 1790, this honored historic thoroughfare
remains to-day as it was in the beginning, with all its sloughs and
sands, its mud and holes, and jutting ledges of rock and loose bowlders,
and twists and turns, and general total depravity.
It is not surprising that when the original Kentuckians were settled
on the blue-grass plateau they sternly set about the making of good
roads, and to this day remain the best road-builders in America. One
such road was enough. They are said to have been notorious for
profanity, those who came into Kentucky from this side. Naturally.
Many were infidels--there are roads that make a man lose faith. It is
known that the more pious companies of them, as they travelled along,
would now and then give up in despair, sit down, raise a hymn, and
have prayers before they could go farther. Perhaps one of the
provocations to homicide among the mountain people should be reckoned
this road. I have seen two of the mildest of men, after riding over it
for a few hours, lose their temper and begin to fight--fight their
horses, fight the flies, fight the cobwebs on their noses, fight
anything.
Over this road, then, and towards this town, one day, five summers ago,
I was picking my course, but not without pale human apprehensions. At
that time one did not visit Pineville for nothing. When I reached it I
found it tense with repressed excitement. Only a few days previous
there had been a murderous affray in the streets; the inhabitants had
taken sides; a dead-line had been drawn through the town, so that those
living on either side crossed to the other at the risk of their lives;
and there was blue murder in the air. I was a stranger; I was innocent;
I was peaceful. But I was told that to be a stranger and innocent and
peaceful did no good. Stopping to eat, I fain would have avoided, only
it seemed best not to be murdered for refusing. All that I now remember
of the dinner was a corn-bread that would have made a fine building
stone, being of an attractive bluish tint, hardening rapidly upon
exposure to the atmosphere, and being susceptible of a high polish. A
block of this, freshly quarried, I took, and then was up and away. But
not quickly, for having exchanged my horse for another, I found that the
latter moved off as though at every step expecting to cross the
dead-line, and so perish. The impression of the place was one never to
be forgotten, with its squalid hovels, its ragged armed men collected
suspiciously in little groups, with angry, distrustful faces, or peering
out from behind the ambush of a window.
A few weeks ago I went again to Pineville, this time by means of one of
the most extensive and powerful railroad systems of the South. At the
station a 'bus was waiting to take passengers to the hotel. The station
was on one side of the river, the hotel on the other. We were driven
across a new iron bridge, this being but one of four now spanning the
river formerly crossed at a single ford. At the hotel we were received
by a porter of metropolitan urbanity and self-esteem. Entering the
hotel, I found it lighted by gas, and full of guests from different
parts of the United States. In the lobby there was a suppressed murmur
of refined voices coming from groups engaged in serious talk.
As by-and-by I sat in a spacious dining-room, looking over a
freshly-printed bill of fare, some one in the parlors opposite was
playing on the piano airs from "Tannhäuser" and "Billee Taylor." The
dining-room was animated by a throng of brisk, tidy, white young
waiting-girls, some of whom were far too pretty to look at except from
behind a thick napkin; and presently, to close this experience of the
new Pineville, there came along such inconceivable flannel-cakes and
molasses that, forgetting industrial and social problems, I gave myself
up to the enjoyment of a problem personal and gastric; and erelong,
having spread myself between snowy sheets, I melted away, as the butter
between the cakes, into warm slumber, having first poured over myself a
syrup of thanksgiving.