At a restaurant in nearby Norton the food was delicious but nobody was talking to each other. It has a colorful natural and human history. The Harlan county web site shows many pretty areas including Blanton Forest , Kentucky's biggest old growth forest. The mountain is home of the endangered Indiana bat. The area also consists of a colorful mix of ethnic groups as it was once the most profitable coal mining region in the world.
Black Mountain is a historic and grand coal mining mountain.
The closest town, Lynch, was one of the largest company coal towns in its day. It was once the largest coal mining operation in the world, the world's largest coal tipple and the world record for coal production in a eight hour shift of worker to coal tonnage ratio. There are coal museums and coal sculptures here.