Louisville Courier-Journal - November 9, 1895

By W.J. Lampton

Jackson, Ky., Nov. 7, - Special - Twenty miles beyond Beattyville Junction, the traveler reaches the present terminus of the Lexington and Eastern railway, set down on the time table as Inverness, but, in reality, Jackson, the county seat of Breathitt County. That is to say, Inverness is the last station on the road, but Jackson, on the opposite bank of the North Fork of the Kentucky River, is the real stopping place for travelers and the immediate object of their visit.

And Jackson is a fine little town notwithstanding it is the county seat of "Bloody Breathitt." For there isn't any "Bloody Breathitt" anymore. Up to within ten years ago it looked that way a good many times, and there was blood on the moon and on the landscape, every now and then, but the spirit of the people has undergone a change; something newer and better is at work and what once was can never be possible again. The people don't like to talk about it, but there is no good in concealment. The newspapers have told the story and the people should not only live down the bad deeds, but the worse stories of the papers. Jackson is doing her part in this direction nobly, and she is no more like the old Jackson than light is like darkness.

Still Breathitt shouldn't have permitted the trouble in the first place; nor should the other mountain counties which are in bad repute have permitted themselves to get such a reputation. There is no denying the fact that the mountain people are too ready to take the law into their own hands, among those who are disposed to be lawless, and there is too little inclination on the part of the law abiding to enforce the law; but that sort of thing is not to be cured by exaggerated and blood-curdling newspaper reports. A few of the untamables cause the difficulty and there follows indiscriminate condemnation, with never an available suggestion of a remedy. The remedy lies with the state which has already set aside enough money for the county's good public schools to operate for five months in the year, the newspaper will follow, the church will thrive, the law will be recognized, the old things will pass away, and there will arise a new spirit and a new condition.

Among the greatest of material civilizers if the railroad, and there has been a great change effected in this section since the advent of the Lexington and Eastern, which, as the Kentucky Union, broke its way through these mountains about five years ago. At that time Jackson had perhaps 300 people; she now has 1,000 or more, and there is a thrift and energy among her people which might well entitle her to the sobriquet of Atlanta of the Mountains. This L&E road is a remarkable one in many respects, and I was glad to hear that it is making money and that business is increasing right along. In two hours it carries the passenger from the very heart of the Bluegrass at Lexington into the wilds of the foothills, and sweeping along the rivers and around the bases of hills, through canyons and tunnels, it stops at last in what only so shortly ago was the depth of an almost inaccessible wilderness. There are points along its route as wild and picturesque as are some in the Rockies, and the canyon, ending in the Torrent Tunnel, is a tremendous chasm six or seven miles long, two hundred yards wide, and walled in with solid rock from two to eight hundred feet in height. At the lower end of this is the famous Natural Bridge and its towering peaks, and in a side canyon at Torrent is the lofty waterfall which gives the name to the station. Natural Bridge is already popular as an excursion point, and the time will soon come when this section, including Beattyville, on the Kentucky, will be the finest summer resort in the state.

The station names on the L&E are civilizers in themselves: Cat Creek, Greasy, Troublesome, Hell Creek, Devil's Branch, Cut Shin, and a lot more of the same euphonious and indigenous titles giving place to Glenarvon, Cathacassa, Argyle, Shawnee, Glencairn, Fincastle, Monica, and that kind, pretty in themselves, and when fully explained as done by George M. Davie, who christened the stations, quite applicable and appropriate. It occurred to me that some of the native titles should have been retained, but I think I have changed my mind, though one or two like Cut Shin and Hell Creek might be left as monuments to the past. Hell Creek and Cut Shin were never the names of the stations, but they are up in that neighborhood, and are samples of pleasing fancies in pioneer nomenclature. The L&E meets the L&N and C&O at Winchester, the Gate City of the mountains, in two hours and a half (overland old time, from two days to two weeks, according to the condition of the roads) from the terminus, and from that point the passenger can reach any city on earth very nearly as quickly as he could once get from Jackson to Winchester, and with a deal more comfort.

Breathitt County was established in 1839 and named in honor of the then governor of the state. It has a population of about 12,500 and is rich in timber and coal. It is also a fine fruit-raising country, but the distance from markets is too great to make it valuable as yet.

Jackson, the county seat, is of the same age as the county, and was named for the one and only Andy. The first vote cast in the county was by James Stidham, who polled it for Old Hickory, and though he hasn't been voting for the old man ever since he still votes the ticket. It was not unusual in those days to vote early, though they didn't always vote clean, and Mr. Stidham got his in when he was only seventeen.

The Southern sentiment used to be so strong in Breathitt that it was generally known as "Little Dixie."

Jackson crowns a hill or two on the east bank of the North Fork, twenty-five miles by water from Beattyville, and its limits take in both sides of the river and good deal of the contiguous territory. There is scarcely room for a great city, and the people don't want it. If they build up as they have in the past five years, they will have 5,000 in twenty years, and that is all the big they care to be. Many sensible people, too; ever so much better than a boom out of sight and a squelch.

The town is of the second class, governed by trustees, a police judge, and a marshal. The marshal is assisted in his moralizing influence by two deputy marshals and the order as a rule is very good. When it isn't the offender gets a dose of justice that he doesn't soon forget.

The courthouse is of brick, completed in 1888, and cost $12,000. It once had a tower on it (without a clock), but somehow it grew tired and just fell off. A hole in the roof shows where it once was. The building would be an attractive feature of the town if it were painted, some fresh panes of glass put in the windows, a fence built around it, and the grounds parked. In other respects it does will enough. The rooms are large and desolate looking, and there are fire-proof vaults in the clerk's office.

The brick jail on the side of the lot is only a year old and is commodious and complete, costing $8,300, including the jailer's residence.

Within a few yards of it is still standing the scaffold where Bad Tom Smith recently took a drop too much. It is not a very pleasing sight, and why it is left there I am unable to say. Within a hundred feet of it, with nothing between save air and distance, is the prettiest church in town. Possible the congregation is using is as an example. I can't say as to that.

The public school building, which is so much superior to the Beattyville building as to make, excellent by comparison, is of frame, two stories high, and cost $1,500. Two hundred and forty scholars should attend it, but only 175 are enrolled, and lots of them don't go. The school is well-conducted by Prof. Charles Sewell and Miss Katherine Patrick, and the grand old Commonwealth generously allows both of them $700 for their five months' work. Jackson's educational interests are further cared for by the Jackson Collegiate Institute, a branch of Central University. This school is in session ten months in the year, and with President Goff and five assistants, a really great work is done for the young people of all this section. The college building, of brick, cost $6,000, and the dormitory, of frame, cost $3,500. There are seven acres of campus, which in time will make handsome grounds. There is a library which is free to all, a YMCA branch and a military department, in which the young fellows are nicely uniformed. The school is a feeder to the Central University for those who seek a collegiate course, but its best world lies right at home, in the excellent influence it exerts on all classes, old and young, town and county. I noticed the little example of this on a drive I took six miles into the country. A little log school house, tumbled down and windowless, sat lonely by itself at the foot of a hill, but all around it have been set out little evergreen trees, making quite a little grove in embryo; and this was done by the scholars in celebration of Arbor Day, just as had been done at the Institute. I saw a lot of school houses in other counties that hadn't been celebrating Arbor Day, more's the pity.

Jackson is a remarkable moral town, as everybody will tell you who knows anything about it, and socially it is not in it a minute with Beattyville, because the wildest dissipation known to Jackson society is a candy party, with possibly a sewing circle to add to the hilarity. As for dancing, goodness sakes alive! They wouldn't have a dance for love nor money. But Jackson is more intellectual and thoughtful and book-loving and literary than Beattyville. As an example of its literariness they had me and John Fox, Jr., there the same night. John lectured under the college auspice, and I sat in the audience and listened to him. It was a good lecture, too, about the romance and reality of the mountaineers, and the people enjoyed it thoroughly. Nor do I say this because John sent me complimentaries. I bought two tickets and used them both.

There are two churches in town, Methodist and Presbyterian, both of wood, the first costing $2,500, and the other $1,800, and both have bells. The Presbyterian house was the first house of worship Jackson ever had. There is not stationed minister, but regular union services are held, and they are well attended. Indeed, there isn't much else to go to except church.

There are only three colored families in town, and naturally the Republican part doesn't cut much of a figure in local politics.

There are no electric lights, and no street lights of any kind except lanterns. Lanterns flourished, however, quite as extensively as they do in Beattyville. So do cows in the streets, but hogs don't. I think I never saw quite so many porcine mothers with large and interesting families as I saw on the streets of Beattyville.

Jackson has four doctors and no cemetery. At least a responsible citizen told me there was none, but they had enterprise enough to have just as good a one as anybody had when there was any need of it.

There are twelve lawyers, and the Jackson bar is above the mountain average.

No liquor is sold in town by license or otherwise, the "blind tiger" having been chased clean into the woods. This festive animal, I imagine, still flourishes in the woods, though.

Jackson's best hold is her mercantile business. In this respect she leads all competitors. One of her firms sells over a hundred thousand dollars worth of goods a year, and such enterprising firms as the Day Brothers, the Hargises and Crawford are hard to fin. The Days are just finished a three-story pressed brick store, 60 x 40 feet, to cost $6,500, and Crawford is finishing a fine two-story brick to cost $6,00. There is an air of energy and activity pervading the place which makes people feel as if good times were perennial, and the visitor doesn't more than strike the town until he feels that he has lit on something alive and kicking. It is all home industry, too, and what Jackson is doing is not done with foreign capital.

Several new residences of good proportions are going up and the sound of the hammer and the call of the workman are heard all day long.

Hotels are as numerous as leaves in Valambrose, or whatever the name of that place is, or their signs are, but the two which do the business are the Riverside and the Arlington. What Jackson needs is a Ninaweb Inn sort of a hotel to bring her right to the front. P.S. And she's going to have it. Wait a little while and see.

Another greater need of her just now is a bridge across the river, connecting her with the railroad and all that side of the country. It could be built for ten or twelve thousand dollars, and why the merchants don't organize a stock company and build it is one of the things I can't understand. It would pay directly as an investment and add largely to the general value of the town.

There are six typewriters in the city limits, and county clerk Hagins is the pioneer of that line, having introduced the first one. He also rendered me valuable service as an information bureau.

J.H. Hargis is the postmaster, and the building in which he has his office reflects about as much credit on the United States government as the mountain school houses reflect credit upon the great state of Kentucky.

In manufactures there is a big sawmill, a pump factory, and another sawmill not so big, with room and cheap raw material for a dozen wood works.

There is no fire department, but when the sawmill whistle blows the whole town turns out with buckets and dispatch. A locomotive whistle went off half-cocked one night while I was there and the whole town turned out just the same. At least, all that part in my neighborhood did. In the morning it was discovered that the watchman at the round-house was raising steam, and didn't know that he should have hung his hat on the whistle until the steam got high enough to close the valve.

Col. Jim Patrick is the leading dog-fancier of the town, and what he doesn't know about mastiffs and Newfoundlands isn't worth knowing. He has calls for dogs from all over.

The Jackson Hustler is the only paper, and it is what its name implies, or it will be, for the business men of the town are behind it, and they are going to keep a hustle to it. T.M. Morrow is the new editor, and he is making a good start.

Coal sells in town at seven cents a bushel, and the hills not far away are full of it. One vein in the vicinity shows nine feet thickness.

Across the river is one of the most bendious river bends in this entire country. The river nearly swings around a great loop for nearly seven miles, and comes back to within sixty-eight feet of itself. A tunnel has been driven through the ridge at this point, and a seven-mile fall is secured in this sixty-eight feet to run a mill with. However, the mill is not running now. The top of the intervening ridge, known as the Pan Handle, is perhaps 150 feet above the water, and is so narrow that only the person can walk along it. It soon widens out into the Pan Bowl, and one of these days this will be a city park unequaled by any anywhere.

The bicycle has not reached Jackson, and carriages and buggies are few owing to the better adaptation of the roads to horse and muleback travel.

There has been only one legal hanging in the county (Tom Smith, this year) and only two lynchings, which were as far back as 1881. There has not been a killing in the town since 1886. How many more favorable situated county seats can make as good a showing?

Capt. Hendrie is one of the luminaries of the town, and a cannier Scotchman you seldom find. He knows every coal seam in all that section, and can smell cannel coal forty feet under ground.

There are twelve pianos and twenty or more organs, and some of the young people are decidedly musical.

In the matter of street shade, Beattyville is considerable in advance of Jackson. Now is the time for Jackson to plant and grow up with her shade trees.

The Courier-Journal heads the list of newspapers read, and Louisville gets more of Jackson's trade than any other city does. These mountain towns are more Kentuckified than some of the Bluegrass towns are, though it does not show so much in the soft Southern speech. It does in Beattyville much more than in Jackson, from which I opine that in the old times the people of that neighborhood owned more slaves than did those in the Jackson neighborhood. In fact, I know they did, for there are fifty times as many colored people in Beattyville as there are in Jackson.

The present hope of this entire section is oil, and the oil prospector abounds everywhere. Thousands of acres of oil lands are being leased every week and one some of the tracts wells will be sunk within the next three or four months. Indications in many places are fine, and as experts from the Pennsylvania oil fields are interested, it is no more than fair to suppose there must be something in it or they would not be spending their money there. If oil is once struck, the boom will be on with a rush, and everything will jump to the top with a bounce. They are already talking about pipe lines and every now and then the stranger thinks he can catch a greasy smell in the atmosphere.

There are six brick buildings in town and a number of good residences costing from $2,500 to $5,000.

I went fishing one day with another Day. It was John, and he drove me up a hill about a mile high and let me down on the other side to the banks of the Quicksand up which we drove until we came to enough water for the fish to swim in without scraping holes in their stomachs on the bottom. Several prominent citizens of the Quicksand met us here and somebody caught a gallon of apple brandy fresh off of the tree. It makes the finest bait in the world, and it doubles the number of fish one catches, when one comes to count them.

With the odor of apple blossoms in the air, I think I shall conclude my remarks on Jackson, the towniest town of the mountains, and the Queen Business Bee of them all.