Blackleg Hollow, Rush KY, 1952

Attached below is an image of a portion of a US Geological Survey Aerial photograph from 17 March 1952.^{USGS photo ID:AR1UT0000030082}  This image concentrates on the area in and near Blackleg Hollow in Rush KY.  When the coal mines were most active in this area, from 1890-1903, Blackleg Hollow would have been a hub of local activity, much more so than today. 

North is at the top of this image.  Most of this area is in Boyd County, but the part of the image on the far left on the west side of Williams Creek is in Carter County. I have placed small red numbers on this image, to identify various features like houses, buildings, and mine entrances.  Under the image is a legend with a very brief description.  Below the image is a more information packed narrative on this area in general, and additional specifics regarding the numbered locations.

The road proceeding up Blackleg is off what is now called KY SR 854.  In 1952 KY SR 854 would have been a tar and gravel road.  The road up Blackleg would have been dirt with gravel here and there.

Ashland Iron and Mining (AI&M) drift mined this area extensively for coal from about 1890^{KY, Annual Report of Mines, 1890, p47} to about 1903^{KY, Annual Report of Mines, 1903, p153}.  After 1903 smaller operations likely picked at the leftovers. In the time of this image there was no meaningful commercial mining underway.  There may have been a few locals picking here and there for their own domestic use.  Four long abandoned drift mine entrances are shown at the positions marked as #23.  The far less distinct lines shown at positions marked as #25 MIGHT also be long abandoned mine entrances.

A few years after this image, strip mining operations in this general area extracted coal from the same seams used for these drift mines.  This stripping operation obliterated these decades old abandoned mine entrances.

This area would have been very active during the Rush coal boom.  The Rush Company Store for the for AI&M was located here, as was the home of the area AI&M Superintendent, Sam Seaton.  The Rush US Post Office and C&O Railway Depot was also here.

Harold Bates (b 1939) and Don Thornsbury (b 1946) lived in this area and were very helpful in providing information on many of the marked locations.

#1 – “Old Lady” McNeil’s House – This was a small frame house that still stands, but is uninhabited due to disrepair.  Harold Bates indicated it was where “Old Lady” McNeil lived.  Harold was unsure of her first name.  It is reasonably possible it was Martha Tufts McNeil (1883 – 1949).  Obviously she could have not been living there in 1952, but she was living in this general area on the 1940 US Census.

#2 Abandoned Powder House – A small brick structure that once stored explosive powders used in the local mining operations.  For safety, this small structure was located away from the mining company store. 

#3 – Company Store and Post Office – The Company Store was a large two story brick building with a basement.  Basements would have been very unusual for this area.  The building also had an elevator.  It was built in the 1880’s by Ashland Coal and Iron Railway (AC&I) and later integrated into the AI&M operation.  Hundreds of local miners and their families would have used their mine script pay to purchase the necessities of life here. By the 1940’s this building was being used as a privately run general store run by the Chapman / Ratliff families.  This brick building at some point also housed the local Rush Post Office.  This Chapman / Ratliff family later moved their popular local business to the Coalton / Mile Branch area beside heavily traveled US 60.

In the 1940’s, 1950’s, and early 1960’s the US Post office was located in a small one story wood framed building immediately to the north of this large brick structure.  My maternal aunt, Minnie Tiller Gee (1923 – 1997), was postmaster in this small wooden structure in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.  During the coal mining mining boom, this small wooden building had been the office for the AC&I and later the AI&M operations.

#4 – C&O Depot – This depot housed a telegraph operator, rail loading platform, and covered and locked storage areas.  Rail passengers could board here and many locals used this access to obtain life necessities from the major city of the region, Ashland KY. The depot was constructed in 1920.^{Weathers Field Notes p96}  Prior to building this depot, the AC&I operated another depot about 0.1 mile north.

#5 – Tom Chapman House – This was the residence of local grocer and Democratic politician, Tom Chapman (1922 – 1998),  and family, wife Dorothy Dunard Chapman (1923 – 2002), and daughters Patty Chapman (1944 – 2019) and Linda Chapman (1945 – 2017).  There is a possibility this family moved to the Coalton / Mile Branch area a bit before 1952.  This house is barely in Carter County, you can see the bridge over Williams Creek to access this property from KY SR 854

#6 – John Waugh House – The John (1893- 1958) and Lillie Clark Waugh (1905 – 1981) family lived here.  The children were Doris Lee Clay Wellman (1933 – 2019), Bertha Waugh Stephenson (1926 – 2005), John Hubert Waugh (1938 – 2010), Georgene Waugh Wormsley (1941 – 2017), and Bessie Waugh Porter (1946 – 2017).  This house is just inside Carter County.

#7 – Arthur Bates House – Arthur (1900 – 1985) and Thelma Hereford Bates (1907 – 1998) lived here with their son Harold (b 1939).  This house was previously a mining company house constructed before 1900.  The house was purchased from Eastern Kentucky Lumber and Development Corporation in the 1940’s.  Eastern Eastern Kentucky Lumber and Development Corporation had assumed ownership of most of the huge tract of mining company lands owned by AI&M and later ARMCO.  This house still stands, but is dilapidated and uninhabited.

Thelma Bates was a beloved local school teacher that had taught in both the local one room schools in Carter County and later the first grade at the consolidated grade school at Cannonsburg in Boyd County.  Arthur was a local coal miner early in life and later spent decades at the coal and clay mines at Princess for Big Run Coal and Clay Company that ran a brick and tile production facility at Princess. Harold worked in the general area for General Telephone for several years and later moved to the Chicago IL area.

#8 – Former Site of Methodist Church – The Methodist Episcopal Church South sat on this location; this church was later known as just the “Methodist Church”.  This congregation’s very small parcel of land had been given to them by the local mining company before 1900.  A property dispute between the church and neighbor Oscar Stewart prompted the church to be torn down, and a new church built in a much more convenient location, 0.3 miles north beside KY SR 854.  The former hillside location at Blackleg was hard to access and had no space for any sort of parking.

#9 – Kentucky SR 854 – The main highway in Rush.  State Route 854 follows both Williams Creek, and a bit south of this image, Rush Creek.

#10, 11, & 12 – Oscar Stewart House – Oscar Stewart (1882 – 1968) purchased this property and large frame house in the mid 1940’s from Eastern Eastern Kentucky Lumber and Development.  Oscar was a telegraph operator for the C&O railway and would have been at retirement age when he moved to the mouth of Blackleg. Oscar and his wife, Nellie Riggs Stewart (1891 – 1959), had previously lived in Carter County around Denton.

This house was constructed by the Ashland Coal and Iron Railway and was used as the residence of the local mining operations superintendent.  Mining Superintendent, Sam Seaton (1867 – 1927) and family, lived here for decades.  His family was still living here in the 1940 US Census, 13 years after Sam’s death.

Arthur and Thelma Bates purchased this house from Oscar Stewart’s estate and moved here from their neighboring house.

#13 – Gwen Seaton McGuire House – This small frame house was constructed for Sam Seaton’s daughter, Gwendolyn “Gwen” Seaton McGuire (1903 – 1970), in the 1940’s.  She lived there with her two son’s Edward McGuire (1939 – 2013) and David McGuire (1940 – 2020).

Part or all of this house’s foundation is likely recycled from a railroad / mining company pump house and carpentry shop that sat on this same location and was demolished^{Weathers Field Notes p89}. The pump house was used in conjunction with the hillside pit reservoir described in #14 below.

#14 – Abandoned Rail Steam Water Reservoir Pit – A dug pit about 63 feet long X 29 feet wide X 10 feet deep^{Weathers Field Notes p95}.  It provided water for steam locomotives on the railroad via an iron pipe running from this pit, down a steep incline to a pump house, near the mouth of Blackleg.  There was a water filling port for these steam locomotives on the nearby railroad.

#15 & 16 – Henry Schmidt House – Henry Schmidt (1883 – 1986) and wife Pearl Sexton Schmidt (1886 – 1990) lived in this small frame house.  Henry was a former coal miner in the area.

#17 &18 – Warren Caldwell House – Warren Caldwell (1916 – 1985) and Dorothy Lucas Caldwell (1917 – 1985).  This family was living a few miles away nearer the head of Williams Creek on the 1940 US Census.  In the 1940 Census Warren is listed as a farmer, but he also worked on the C&O Railway.  Warren and Dorothy were the parents of well know Rush locals, Lloyd Caldwell (1935 – 2006), Curt Caldwell (1937 – 2009), Bill Caldwell (1939 – 2006), James Caldwell (1941 – 1997), Carolyn Caldwell McKinney (b 1943), Eugene Caldwell (1947 – 1968), and Teddy Caldwell (b 1955).  The descendants of this family continued living in Blackleg.

#19 & 20 – Babe Savage House – Chrisley “Babe” Savage (1889 – 1964) and Jennie Thornsbury Savage (1888 – 1984).  Babe was retired from the Denton Post Office where he delivered mail on horseback, the local roads were atrocious. When in the Blackleg area Babe plowed local gardens using his team of mules. Babe was a colorful and well known local that loved election day.  For years Babe was the local Republican precinct representative.

The barn was torn down in about 1960 and Jack Thornsbury (1918 – 1997), Jennie’s son and Babe’s stepson, built a new house in that location.  Don Thornsbury (b 1946), who helped provide info for this article, was Babe and Jennie’s grandson.

#21 – Jack Phillips House – Ralph “Jack” Phillips (1914 – 1978) and Mary Clark Phillips (1922 – 1996) lived here with their family.  The children were Mary Phillips Senters (1940 – ????), Linda Phillips Tilley (1943 – 2004), Tracy Phillips, Rebecca Phillips Reeves (1948 – 2021), Panola “Pat” Phillips Newman, and Jacquelyn “Jackie” Phillips (b 1954).

#22 – Chester Davis House – Chester “Check” Davis (1909 – 1973) and Mymia Lucas Davis (1912 – 1989).  Mymia Lucas Davis was the aunt of her neighbor, Dorothy Lucas Caldwell.  Check was killed in his car in a train collision about ½ mile north.  The children were Betty Davis Marshall (b 1932) and Dycia Davis Marshall (1935 – 2009).

The Hartman family later lived in this house, and even later the Raymond Whitley (1930- 2013) and Edith “Trecie” Thacker Whitley (1940 – 2012) family lived here.  Raymond Whitley indicated that my Great Grandparents, Thomas (1868 – 1945) and Martha Belle Wallace Tiller (1869 – 1948), also likely lived in this house.

#23 – Abandoned Coal Mine Entrances – You can see at least 4 abandoned coal mine entrances.  These are remnants of the drift mining operations from 1900.  A few years after this 1952 image, strip mining in the area destroyed these features.  Harold Bates (b 1939) was in one of these mines with his Father, Arthur Bates, when he was young.  Arthur was an experienced miner, and supplied the carbide headlamps for this investigatory visit with his son.

#24 – Bulldozer Road – This very rough road followed the ridge of this minor hollow that spilled into Blackleg from the north.

#25 – Possible Abandoned Coal Mine Entrances – Note these are only possible drift coal mine entrances.  They are visually far less distinct and may actually just be reasonably straight water paths in the hillside and not drift mine openings.

#26 – Road to Trace – This was a traditional unimproved road that was not suitable for general use, but was reasonably passable in a truck or other vehicle with high ground clearance.  The county road department likely sent a maintenance dozer or grader to attend once every year or two.  Though not used very much in the 1950’s, it had been used extensively to link the previous intensive mining operations and the associated communities on Trace back to utilitarian accommodations near Blackleg.

I traveled this road from Trace to Blackleg only once in a pickup truck with my Father, George Coleman (1912 – 1991).  This was in about 1960 when I was 9, to go from Coalton via Trace and Blackleg to see a baseball game at Rush.  Strip mining later severed this route to Trace from Blackleg.

A big thanks to Harold Bates and Don Thornsbury for their kind and focused help on this article.

Enjoy! Lon

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