Bill... Glad to do it...
I love the old mining and manufacturing history of these hills as much as i love the railroads... They are all interconnected...
North East Tennessee and Southern Kentucky is an interesting place... The post-civil war "carpetbaggers" and foreign investors really explored and developed these territories thoroughly from the 1870'a up thru the early 1900's... There was a real push and scramble to prospect and develop these potential resources in these territories, particularly Jellico and Middlesboro...
This developmental interest caused the L & N to make large railroad investments in these areas in the early 1900's just before WW1... The Southern had already shown up and had acquired lots of its routes thru mergers and buyouts of smaller railroads... The Southern did, however, build the big branch into LaFollette to serve the LaFollete brother's interests...
The Big South Fork National Park came from the J.P.Stearns logging and mining interest (...Stearns, KY...)... It contains that wonderful jewel, the Big South Fork Scenic Railway... Our pet Southern 4501 once worked on the Kentucky and Tennessee Railway; owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company...
The Jellico, K & O thing came from English venture capitalists in the 1890's...
Middlesboro, KY came from English venture capitalists headed by a guy by the name of Alexander Arthur (...Arthur is still a stop on the Southern RR to Middlesboro near the Cumberland Gap Tunnel...)...He even built a railroad to get up there; the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap, and Louisville RR; now the Middlesboro Branch of the NS; and still haulin coal out of the Yellow Creek area mines...
By the way, there is some folklore that the Southern bought and used two 150 ton shays to switch the rough territories in the Yellow Creek area... The Southern, did, in fact, buy two shays and later sold them to the C & O... We cant find any evidence that they were assigned to service in the Yellow Creek area, but it makes sense to me, at least....
The LaFollette brothers (...Harvey and Grant...) built the town of LaFollette around the LaFollette Coal, Iron and Railway Company; at one time, one of the biggest pig iron producers in the southeast.... It was sold out in the thirties, and the impoundment of the Norris Lake finished the branch in the middle thirties...
Sadly, the only mines that are producing anything are in the Yellow Creek area of the Middlesboro territory...
Long gone are the old mines at Briceville that connected to the K & O at Coal Creek (...now Lake City, TN...)...The Fraterville Mine disaster of May, 19, 1902 killed 216 miners and devastated the hamlet of Fraterville; a close knit community of mostly Welch coal miners......Some 9 years later, the Cross Mountain Mine disaster of December 9, 1911 killed 84 miners and decimated the town of Briceville; a stone's throw from Fraterville... Both these mines furnished coal to the Knoxville Iron Company... The disasters at Fraterville and Cross Mountain lead to the formation of the Mine Safety Administration and the development of Mine Rescue Teams...
There's a bunch of history in these hills around here, and, sadly, not many folks know about it...
leroy