The Big Sandy news., 1914-05-29
THE OPENING OF AN EMPIRE"

snort tlIne ago lHTOuBn tne ctiiphS
he so well describes. 1t was taken
from Mr.. Breckenridge's paper, the
Lexington Herald.
We have just returned from trip
which we wish every citizen of Ken
lucky could and would take. From
the standpoint of information, of in
terest and of pleasure, il is one of the
most delightful trips that Kentuck-
ian can possibly take.
Three years ago the Lexington a.
Eastern Railroad stopped at Jackson,
Breathitt county; the Big Sandy div
ision of the Chesapeake & Ohio eX-
tended only to Elkhorn City; between
the terminus of the Lexington & East
ern and the terminus of the Big Sandy
division of the C. & o.. a distance of
one hundred and forty miles, was a
railroad desert. The illimitable supply
of coal underlying the mountains, on
which stand apparently ineXhaustible
forests of hard wood timber, was ut
terly inaccessible. But little different
from the condition in which Boone,
Crockett and their companions found
that country, when they blazed the
way from Virginia to the Dark and
Bloody Ground, was this empire, un-
derlaid with coal sufficient to supply
the world, crowned with forests sur
passing any in the State.
Not within hundred years had
there been any increase in the popula-
ton. The more virile, vigorous, intel
ligent of the men had scaled the noun
tains and gone out through the passes
to the lowlands, in many cases win
ming high success and achieving wide
reputation, but leaving upon others
the burden OF existence in the noun
tain fastness from which they escaped
He would have been a rash prophet
who three years ago would have at
tempted to draw a picture of the
| change in these mountains within SO
short time. The Lexington & East
ern has been extended from Jackson
one hundred miles,; it's terminus is
now McRoberts, town built within
the past three years. Through Shelby
Gap, UP the Elkhorn thirty-five miles
railroad has been built to Jenkins
where there are over seven thousand
people, and from which is daily ship
ped thousands of tons of coal.
McRoberts, the terminus of the Lex
ington & Eastern on the west, and
Jenkins, the terminus Of the Baltimore
& Ohio on the east, are but five miles
apart. Instead of an untraveled will
derness between these railroads there
is now macadam roadway across the
mountain, over which motor cars make
hourly trips. New towns have sprung
up as in night, the very names of
which are unknown to many of us of
Central Kentucky, so much more rapid
has been their growth than has been
our cropping intelligence.
Wayland, jenkins, McRoberts, Elem
ing, Hemphill, Garrett-who of the
readers of The Herald know of these
towns that have sprung up as il by
magic in these mountain counties? :?
Who realize that there have come into
these mountains an immigration in
numbers greater than all the residents
of Fayette county? Who appreciate
that from the veins of coal that three
years ago We're an inaccessible as the
coal beds of Alaska there are now be-
ing shipped millions of tons a year?
How many of the people of Central
Kentucky have even the dimmest con-
ception of the wealth that has been
poured with lavish hands, guided
however, by wise judgment, into these
mountains to secure the coal that is
now admitted to be the best coal pro-
duced in America?
Not hundreds of thousands, not mil
lions only, but tens of millions of dol
lars have been spent by the railroads
to secure the tonnage, and other mil
lions by the coal companies to furnish
the tonnage which the railroads sought
so earnestly. Up streams that IL SEEM
ed almost impossible that even mule
could go, through mountains over
which goat only could climb the
railroads have penetrated the mountain
fastness and are today carrying out
train load after train load of coal that
is unequalled.
1t is difficult to write in moderate
terms of what has been, what is being
and what is going to be done in that
region. All the world yields admira-
ton to the Government of the United
States for the completion of the Pana-
ma Canal. Promptly, efficiently, hon
estly, the representatives of the Gov
ernment with unlimited wealth at their
command, completed the task in the
completion of which the French nation
failed ingloriously. Greater than the
in digging the ditch
to join the waters of the Atlantic and
the Pacific is the accomplishment of
the work done in the mountains of
Eastern Kentucky. And yet ii was
done without the blare of trumpets,
without the acclaim even of the people
of the State that will benefit most by
its accomplishment.
AS far as we know 1t Is the only
great Industrial undertaking that has
been inaugurated and accomplished
since the panic of 1907. 1t marks, as
far as we are aware. the only material
extension Of railroad lines, and the only
great development of natural resources
accomplished in the past seven years.
1t is impossible to convey an adequate
conception of what has been accom-
plished to one who has not seen with
his own eyes the work that has been
and noted the work that is being done.
From the smallest to the most impor-
tant detail equal attention seems to
have been given. Nothing has been
overlooked. nor has expense been spar
ed to provide for the most economical
mining OF the coal Nothing has been
overlooked, nor has expense been
spared to provide for the health, the
comfort and the pleasure Of those who