Long before standardized governmental or postal assigned road, street, route names and numbers, people living in unincorporated communities needed a way to designate a particular place in their community. The utility of very specific place names is obvious. So, each community developed names for particular places in their own communities. These place names were just names that some in the community started using and somehow they caught on and became familiar throughout the community.
Each place name might have a different derivation story; the process was not standardized. The derivation of “Burnt House Hollow” is very obvious but others are far more mysterious. This is much like a “nickname” you might give a small child that somehow becomes the name most refer to that person for the rest of their lives. It is an organic naming process, not a standardized bureaucratic one.
Localized place names were often outgrowths of people that lived in the area like Huguenot Hollow in Rush, Towler Lane in Princess, Moore Branch on Straight Creek, or Thompie Hollow at Coalton.
A small stream feeding a larger creek is called a “branch”, “run”, or “fork”. Location names and names of local creeks and streams were often related and harmonious. There is a small stream called Needmore Branch that flows into Rush Creek. The small hollow, geologically created by erosion along Needmore Branch, is called Needmore Hollow. But, locals typically use either Needmore Branch, Needmore Hollow, or even just Needmore to refer to the exact same place.
Cobb Fork is a small creek the feeds larger Straight Creek. The local small hollow area formed by the stream called Cobb Fork is also referred to as Cobb Fork. Locals might indicate that they have a cousin that lives on Cobb Fork. Obviously the cousin does not live in the stream called Cobb Fork, but in the hollow formed by erosion along the stream Cobb Fork.
The terms “run” or “fork” are used a lot like “branch”, but not exactly. Big Run is a small stream just east of the Princess / Coalton area that flows into the East Fork of the Little Sandy River at Cannonsburg. Locals would indicate something like “over on Big Run” to designate that area. So the name of the local “run”, the stream, also becomes the name of the area around the stream. The prominent local company “Big Run Coal and Clay Company” operated mines near “Big Run”, the stream. But importantly, note that places called runs are not also called hollows. So you would have a stream called “Big Run” that also referred to the area around the stream, but one would not refer to that as Big Run Hollow. Fork is utilized exactly like run. One would say Cobb Fork, but not Cobb Hollow. Realize this is a subtitle but important distinction between the general usage use of “branch” and “run” or “fork”.
Streams slightly larger than branches, forks, or runs are called creeks. Rush Creek, Straight Creek, and Williams Creek are the prominent creeks in this area.
The “head” of the branch, run, fork, or creek is where the stream first forms. The hollow at the head of a creek, branch, fork, or run is very narrow and confined. The “mouth” is where the waterway of interest empties into a larger waterway. The width of the hollow or flood plane where the branch, run, fork, or creek empties into a larger tributary is much more generous in size at the mouth (compared to the head).
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