Story – The Master Detective Warrant and Court Record Pardon

Noah & John Reynolds

Pike Countians have long been proud to claim Lillie D. Chaffin as one of their own.  Lillie was 37 and working as an elementary  school teacher at Johns Creek when her first children’s book, A Garden is Good, was published in 1963.  Meanwhile, she was gaining a reputation in another genre, with her poetry

Lawsuits are always a good source of information. This timber report was done at the Mouth of Punching Camp, opposite of Shade Dotson’s house. William McClellan Ritter (February 19, 1864-May 21, 1952) organized the W.M. Ritter Lumber Company in 1901. From the original core of operations in West Virginia and

A scene from the days of Ritter Lumber at Lower Elk. In the center foreground is the company store. The lumber yard is in the front, at the right, with garden plots on the hillside, belonging to the different families in the lumber camp. The area at the back, left,

Our history of Pike County, Kentucky, writers begins with Effie Waller Smith, and Effie’s story begins in 1860 at a public slave auction held in Pikeville, Kentucky. At a time when Kentucky was torn between loyalty to the national Union and her sister slave-holding states farther south, no county was

Southern Bible Institute 1950. The Torch Yearbook Collection. (above) Marrowbone Missionary Baptist Church 1073 (above)

Goody (formerly Leckieville) is located in the bottom-left corner of the photo above. Above is Pond Creek By-Products Colliery, a N&W Railway Company located above Leckieville.

Antebellum coal mining in Pike County was a hit-and-miss proposition, not only for entrepreneurs but for laborers, as well. Sometimes sufficient rainfall allowed the coal to be transported downriver, but dry spells just as often kept the coal boats moored to the riverbank. Even before the formation of Pike County