Bell County, Kentucky by Tim Cornett

Author:Tim Cornett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

IMPROVING ROADS AND THE LAST HANGING

The decade from 1910 through 1919 was a busy one for Bell County. The mines were working full force and the timber business was still a main industry.

T.J. Asher & Sons was still the largest lumber shipper in the area; timber cut upstream from Wasioto, all the way into Harlan County, was floated downstream on the Cumberland to be processed and shipped from the Asher mill. But Asher’s foray into railroad building in the last decade, along with the acquisition of several prime mineral properties, was about to change the face of the Asher family business.

Once the railroad line had been extended along the Cumberland River past Hance’s Creek, Asher began his first venture into the mining business. There is a seam of coal along Hance’s ridge called the Hance Seam. Here he opened his first mine, which he named Varilla, after his wife. As the mine at Varilla had only tapped a small portion of the property Asher held, he rethought his role in the coal industry and decided that he could best serve and benefit by becoming a coal land–leasing company, supplying the land, the coal, the camp town and the timbers for supports in the mines. Now comfortable with what course its enterprise was taking, the Asher company quickly opened mines at Whipple, Balkan and Colmar in Bell County, with several other locations in neighboring Harlan County.

By 1914, the company had reorganized as the Asher Coal Mining Company and had located in the Asher Building offices in Pineville at the corner of Virginia Avenue and Walnut Street.

About the time he was reorganizing his company, T.J. Asher entered into the political arena in Bell County and was elected county judge in 1914. Seeing that Bell County had taxable properties of from $10 to $16 million, Asher was quick to point out that the county could improve roadways in any direction, rivers and mountains being no obstacle to progress. The citizens were supportive, and a bond issue was floated to provide $250 million for road construction.

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